House of Lies
by icyfire
Summary: The day his daughter walks into the CIA, Jack learns truths about his life that he never suspected.
1. Default Chapter

Title:  House of Lies

Author:  Robin (icyfire)

Email:  icyfire@webtv.net

Feedback:  Please.  Constructive crit welcomed.

Distribution:  CD and FF.net.  Any others please ask first.

Disclaimer:  Not mine.  Never have been and probably never will be.  I'd love to own them on DVD though.

Summary:  Alternate Universe.  "Devlin's eyes bore into him from the shadows, and he knew then that Sydney would not be the only one learning to live in a lie."  The day his daughter walks into the CIA, Jack learns truths about his life that he never suspected.

Rating:  PG-13 I would think.  There is nothing here that couldn't be shown on the show.

Classification:  Alternate Universe, Drama, Romance, Angst, Action

A/N:  I played with JJ's world and turned it on its head.  I did, however, use the characters, plots, and words from episodes.  I can't take credit for those.  They belong to the writers of the individual episodes.  A list of the episode's writers is at the end of this fic.

***

She didn't like him.  He was too sure, too cocky for her taste.  His voice grated on her nerves, and his looks--As much as she wanted to fault his looks right now, she couldn't.  Damn, he looked like a wet dream come to life.  If she were honest, she would admit that she did like him except for the question he kept asking.

Sighing, she wished she smoked.  Her hands could play with the cancer stick, flip the top of her lighter open, and then bring the cigarette to her lips.  Instead, she kept them on the arms of the chair.  He leaned into her personal space, and she wished she could blow a ring of smoke in his face.  Push him away.

"No, I won't tell you," she answered.  She didn't understand why he kept asking; her answer never changed.

"Ms. Bristow--" he began again.

She held up her hand.  "I want to help you bring down SD-6, Mr. Vaughn.  I think I could be a great asset to the CIA, but I'm not going to answer that question."

"Your refusal may prevent us from using you."

She stood up and leaned forward.  Feeling his breath on her lips, she snarled, "If the CIA is so narrow minded and stupid, then it deserves--"

"Sydney!"  A voice she never expected to hear here, in this white room drenched in fluorescent lights, stopped her in mid-sentence.  "He's trying to help you."

She turned to look at the man standing at the door.  It had only been a few days since she had last seen him, but he looked older.  His shoulders slumped with an added weight.  New wrinkles had etched their way onto his face.  Her heart hurt because his usual smile was missing.

She knew she was the reason.  She opened her mouth to speak but couldn't think of a word to say.  Closing her eyes, she heard again in her mind the question that the CIA--in the form of Michael Vaughn--had been asking her over and over.  They wanted the one piece of information about SD-6 that she had not shared.  Could not share.

When they realized that she wouldn't tell their questioner, they had sent _him_ in to find out the answer.  She knew it, and she hated them for it.  Almost as much as she hated SD-6.  Almost.  They were going to make her hurt him, destroy him, for that information.

She wouldn't be able to deny him.  She wouldn't be able to protect him from the truth.  He wouldn't let her.  He would see into her soul and know the answer.

"Michael, I'd like to talk to her alone, please," her father told her interrogator.

Vaughn looked like he was about to argue, but then he closed his mouth and nodded.  Picking up his jacket, he said, "Of course, Jack," and left.

Sydney crossed her arms and started rocking on her heels.  "I thought you exported airplane parts."

"I thought you worked for a bank," he replied.

They stared at each other.  Finally, he opened his arms and took a step forward.  She flew into them, into safety.  Standing there, being held tightly to his chest, she let the tears, the fear, the horror, come out.  Shaking and crying, she held onto her daddy and wished she could be his little girl again, safe and protected from the evil that lurked in the world.

When she stopped shaking, he guided her back to the chair.  He went over to pour her a fresh cup of coffee, and then he put it down next to her when she made no move to take it from his outstretched hand.  He sank down onto the floor in front of her.  With her elbows resting on her knees, she stared at the pattern in the squares of linoleum.  She couldn't look at him.

"I hate to tell you this, honey, but Amy Tippin manages to pull off this look a lot better," he told her as he took her hands into his.

She smiled.  The magenta hair glared at her from the sides of her face.  "Yeah, she does."

"I'm going to have to take Will out to dinner or something.  Thank him without saying thanks for what he did for you," he told her as he squeezed her fingers.

She nodded, staring at those strong hands.  They swallowed her smaller ones.  Even though he held her hands loosely, the strength in his grip was easy to see.  The callused fingers and palms rubbed against her softer flesh.  Those hands were not the hands of an executive.  Why had she never paid any attention to them before?  She was trained to notice detail, to question what she was told.

She had never questioned SD-6.  Even after they killed Danny, a part of her had understood, had accepted her part of the blame.  Dying to protect your country, even if you had not volunteered for the role, she could accept.  Dying to protect mercenaries--

"Yeah, I don't know what I would have done without Amy's passport and credit card," she answered in a voice that sounded mechanical to her own ears.  She knew the question was coming; she didn't want to answer it.  She would be destroying him, killing him like she killed Danny.

"Are you sure that you want to do this, Sydney?  We could give you a new identity, send you into--"

Shaking her head, she looked up and met his eyes.  She knew he hated the idea of her leaving, of losing contact with her.  He hated the idea of her being in constant danger as a double agent more.  "No.  I would rather die, Dad."

Jack flinched, but he continued to look at her, to stare into her soul, to seek answers she didn't want to give.  "Who are you protecting, Sydney?"

"Don't ask."  She tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn't let her.

"Who, Sydney?"

"I can't--"

He put his hands on the side of her face and tried to get her to look at him.  "Sydney, who are you protecting?"

Leaning her head down on his shoulder, she giggled and sobbed at the same time.  "When Mr. Vaughn was asking, it was a different answer."

The way his shoulders stiffened told her that he understood.  One of his arms went around her shoulder.  "Sydney, it is not your job to protect me.  I'm your father; it's my job to protect you."

She pushed herself away from him.  "I--"

He leaned forward.  "Sydney, we have to know.  _I_ have to know."

She looked at him and understood that she would not be allowed to leave until he knew.  It was his way.  He protected her, and he was afraid that the unknown element would harm her.  It had hurt her already, but it would destroy him.

Closing her eyes, she licked her lips.  "Mom," she whispered, letting go of the secret.

"Because without knowing--" He stopped talking as the word registered with him.  She opened her eyes and watched the knowledge overcome him.  He didn't jerk back from it.  Instead, he sat up straight, slowly pulling himself away from her and the pain she was causing.  She felt like she was watching a movie frame by frame.

Shock and horror fought in his eyes.  "What?"

"Mom was my rescuer.  She's the one who told me the truth about SD-6."

***

End Part 1


	2. Chapter 2

The door opened, causing Laura to stop her pacing.  She had felt like she had been coming out of her skin for the last few days, and right now she would almost welcome the chance to fight someone.  A hard physical fight with no real winner, where both sides went home with broken bones.

Every muscle in her body contracted, prepared for the fight.  Then everything relaxed when the pale face of her daughter appeared in the opening.  "Sydney?"  She rushed forward and hugged her.  Telling herself that it didn't matter that Sydney didn't return her hug, although it did, Laura pulled away and caressed her daughter's face.

She could see the swelling and the hints of bruises that Sydney had so expertly covered with makeup.  Her eyes had seen a lot of disguised bruises on her own face over the years.  "Sloane called me earlier," she said.  Sydney somehow managed to become more reserved, more distant.  "He told me that you'd gotten the Rambaldi device from FTL."

"Yeah," Sydney said as she pulled away from her and walked over to the refrigerator.  "I thought that was the only thing I could do."

Laura hugged herself.  "You could have gone to Switzerland like I asked."

The water bottle stopped within inches of Sydney's mouth.  She lowered it without taking a drink.  "What would you've told Dad?  Does he know?"

Walking over to the sink, Laura put her hands into the tepid water.  She let out some of it and then began refilling it with hot.  "No, he doesn't know," she admitted.  Every muscle, bone, and tissue in her body protested the thought of Jack Bristow knowing the truth.  It would mean the end of her life.

"So, you've been lying to him, too?" Sydney challenged.

Laura spun around to look at her daughter.  Seeing her standing there with that sullen look on her face reminded Laura of the teenage years.  The walls in this kitchen had heard many arguments between mother and daughter.  Poor Jack had often been caught in the middle of a tidal wave that he hadn't understood; he had never been a daughter or a mother.

However, right now, the argument was far more serious than staying out past curfew or wearing a dress that revealed too much at too young an age.  Teenage fights were to be expected; they could be worked past as the daughter grew into a woman.  How could she expect Sydney to ever understand her choices?

"You've been lying to him since your freshman year," she replied, knowing it would hurt Sydney to be reminded of that truth.  However, she wouldn't dare tell Sydney the truth about Jack's lies.  If Sydney knew that her father worked for the CIA instead of exporting plane parts, she would know exactly how deep Laura's betrayal was.

Angry tears filled her daughter's eyes, but Sydney refused to cry.  Laura could see the determination on her face.  "I thought I was doing something good."

She nodded.  "I know."

Sydney shook her head.  "Exactly.  You _knew_ what I thought, and you knew the truth, and you never told me.  How could you have not told me?"

She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't explain.  Not without revealing more truth, more than Sydney needed to know.  More truth than Sydney could accept.

Mother and daughter stared at each other for a long time.  Finally, Sydney guzzled down the water from her bottle, tossed it into the recycle bin, and said, "I'm going to bed.  I'm going to crash."

"What do you want me to tell your dad when he gets home?" Laura asked.

Sydney's back straightened.  "Tell him--tell him I had a great time on my vacation."

Laura watched her walk away and sighed.  The tightrope that she had been walking most of her life had just gotten more slippery.

***

"There is going to be an investigation, Jack," Devlin told him.  They were standing in a vacant office.  Personnel hadn't moved anyone into Larry's old office yet, and Jack had sought its quiet refuge after sending Sydney home.

Jack's head dropped down, and he rubbed his forehead.  "Why, Devlin?  Because I was so stupid I couldn't see that both my wife and my daughter worked for the enemy?  Why should they hold that against me?" he snarled.

The night surrounded them.  He hadn't bothered to turn on any lights when he had entered earlier, and Devlin hadn't either when he followed a few minutes ago.  Jack stared out into the night, understanding someone he had never before understood.

"Arvin Sloane once told me that he always felt darkness approaching," he whispered.  "Now I know what he meant."

"Jack--"

"Don't, Devlin."  He sank down into the office chair behind the empty desk.  "Don't tell me that you understand, because the simple fact is that you don't."

He looked up at the dark shadow that was his friend.  "Did you read her statement?"  The silhouette nodded.  "I read that and felt like I was reading the words of a stranger.  My daughter is a graduate student who works at a bank.  I taught her how to fire a weapon, but she's not an expert at it.  She's had some self-defense classes, but she couldn't do what she did in Taipei."

Jack closed his eyes as his mind replayed her words, her description of what happened.  They had been detached, analytical, but each one had burned their way into his memory.  The scenes he had not seen were now vivid memories that would haunt him for the remainder of his life.

"Before today, the last time I saw Sydney," he said as his shoulders slumped.  "I was dancing with Laura.  We were laughing and singing _Brown-eyed Girl_.  When she walked into the kitchen, we stopped.  I apologized for waking her, but I was really trying to tell her that I was sorry for laughing, for not respecting her grief."

Spinning on the chair, Jack looked out of the window.  "I didn't even know what she was feeling.  My God, Devlin, she blamed herself for what I thought was a random act of violence.  He died because she told him the truth."

He looked at his watch and noted the time.  When had it gotten so late?  It didn't seem all that long ago that he had left his home for work.  It had been a beautiful day.  "She called me before she left.  Told me she was going on a little vacation.  She didn't sound like she had just narrowly avoided being assassinated.  She didn't even sound a little upset about having just found out that her world was lie.  I never thought anything about it.  I just told her that I was glad she was going, that she needed the break from the routine.

"A break from the routine," he sighed.  He shook his head.  "They tied her up, Devlin.  Tortured her.  Pulled a damn tooth without any painkillers."  His fist clenched.  The taste for blood filled his mouth, overpowered his senses.

He heard Devlin take a few steps closer to him.  "She's good, Jack."

Thinking about the words, written in Sydney's familiar script, discussing assignments, Jack nodded.  "She's really good, Devlin, and that's what scares me the most.  Low-level desk clerks don't get noticed.  Sloane pays special attention to Sydney."

His stomach rolled at the thought of Arvin Sloane being anywhere near his daughter.  They had been friends once, but that had been a long time ago.  Before Sloane had forgotten what they were fighting for, what they believed in, before Sloane had let bitterness overtake him.  Now that bitterness watched over his daughter.

Jack's cell phone rang, stopping whatever words of comfort Devlin had been about to share.  "Bristow," he barked.

"Jack?  Sweetheart, where are you?"

"Laura?"  How could a dead woman be talking?  Then he remembered that there was still a living, breathing woman out there with his wife's face and with his wife's name.  It was his dreams, his beliefs about her that were dead.  She was dead to him, and he was numb from grief.

"You're late for dinner.  Our girl has finally came home from her vacation with a new haircut, and Jack, you are not going to believe what she did!  She dyed it the same color as Will's sister.  Do you believe it?"

What could he say? _ I know.  I've already seen it.  Please, tell me the truth.  _"We all need a change sometimes."

"She's lucky to have you for a dad, Jack.  My father would have yelled up a storm if I came home with red hair."  Laura's familiar laugh didn't bring a smile to his face this time.  The sound of a lie couldn't bring him joy.  "Even at Sydney's age."

"Well, your dad and I would have never gotten along," he muttered.

Laura sighed.  "No, you wouldn't have.  So, when are you coming home?"

"Coming home?"  He didn't have a home anymore.  The only real home he had ever known was a lie.  He opened his mouth to give an answer, to tell her the truth; he would never be coming home again.  Devlin's eyes drilled into him from the shadows, and he knew then that Sydney would not be the only one learning to live in a lie.  "I don't know, sweetheart."  The word somehow didn't choke him.

"I don't know."  He struggled to come up with an excuse.  Unable to even hint at the truth, he lied.  She would know it was a lie, but she would accept it without question.  In his job, he couldn't use unsecured lines to tell her the truth, and she knew it.  Remembering his cover, the one everyone but the CIA and his wife believed to be his real job, he said, "Things have gotten to be a mess here.  One of our biggest customers just called to tell us that the parts they got were not what they ordered and--"

He gulped in air from the stuffy room.  "I should have called.  I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she told him.  "I understand.  I'll leave a light on for you."

"Is Sydney okay?"

She hesitated before answering.  He knew that Sydney had still been angry with Laura for her lies, and he knew that her homecoming had probably been an emotional confrontation between mother and daughter.  In that brief hesitation, he now heard the workings of a devious mind coming up with an untruth.  He wondered if he would have even noticed that brief pause if he still believed in the lie.  "Yeah, she's fine.  Tired.  She went straight to bed."

"Well, she needed to get away."  _Away from the lies.  Away from the death.  Away from you._

"Yeah, she did."  Laura sighed.  "I'm glad she's home though."

"I am, too."  He just wished the same Sydney had come home.  His innocent little girl, untouched by his world.  No, that was wrong.  She was the same; he was different.  His eyes were opened.

"Don't work too hard.  Wake me when you come home if you want," she told him.  He often did, but he wouldn't tonight.  He didn't want to see her, didn't want to hear her deceitful voice.  "I love you."

"I love you, too," he whispered.  He had said the words every day for almost thirty years.  Now they sounded wrong, and he realized why.  For the first time ever, they were a lie.

The cell phone landed on the desk with a loud bang.  "I can't do it, Devlin."

Taking a step closer to him, his boss replied, "You'll have to, Jack.  It's our turn to spy on her, find out what damage she did."

Jack shook his head.  "I don't--"

"Jack, you'll need to do it for Sydney, too.  You suddenly leaving would sound all kinds of alarm bells for Arvin Sloane.  SD-6 would investigate, and I'm not sure Sydney can handle the added pressure."

Looking back at his boss, Jack felt the desire to strangle him.  "Just leave me alone, Devlin."

"Jack--"

He held up his hand.  "Please, Devlin.  Leave me alone.  You don't need to worry about me.  I've always done what the CIA wanted.  You know where my loyalty lies."

"Yes, Jack, I do.  I also know how much you love Laura--"

"Loved."  The word was flat with not a hint of emotion.  Jack was proud of that word.

Nodding, Devlin finished.  "Loved.  However, I also know that's not enough to keep you there in that house.  Sydney's safety is the only thing that will make you stay."

Jack clasped his hands together, squeezing them together until it hurt.  Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, "You're right, Devlin.  It's the only thing making me stay.  Now please leave me alone."

Devlin left, but the thoughts crowding in on him didn't.

***


	3. Chapter 3

She had left a light on for him.  He hated her for it, for reminding him of a different life.  One in which his wife always told him the truth.  Pulling out his wallet--the one filled with pictures of a life that no longer existed--he tossed it down on the dresser.  His change and keys went into a little dish that Laura had bought for him years ago, during a business trip for the Foundation.  She had been examining a new school system.  Or that's what she had told him.  Now he had to wonder.

After hanging his suit in the closet, he went into the master bath.  The bright lights hurt his eyes.  Leaning over the sink, he filled his hands with water and tossed it on his face.  He felt dead inside.

Familiar hands caressed his back.  "Hi, honey."  She kissed his shoulder, and he barely kept himself from pulling away.

"Hi," he answered her as he reached for a hand towel.  "I'm sorry that I missed dinner."

"That's okay," she told him as she lifted herself up onto the counter.  She was wearing a white silk negligee that he loved.  He had bought it for their last wedding anniversary.  Something new to wear on the cruise.  He wanted to tear it off of her, but the impulse was different than usual.  This time he didn't want to see her beautiful nude body.  This time he wanted to rip away the past, to destroy what had never existed.

When he didn't say anything else, she looked at him.  "Are you okay, Jack?"

"I'm fine," he lied.  "Just a rough day."

He turned and walked away from her.  He heard her soft footfalls behind him.  "What happened anyway?  Really?  I know you couldn't tell me on the phone."

Why did she want to know?  For herself?  Or for SD-6?  Sinking down onto the bed, he said, "We have a traitor.  An agent has been supplying information to China."

"What?"  He watched Laura pull away from the doorjamb she had been leaning on, and he wondered at his own words.  He knew he couldn't tell her the truth, couldn't tell her that he knew about her lies.  So, why had he said something about a traitor?

His wife walked to their bed and crawled in behind him.  She began to massage his shoulder.  "I'm sorry.  I know that must have hurt."

What would she say if he told her that it tore his heart from him?  "It's never easy."

"I don't see how anyone could do that.  Betray their country," she told him.  He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.  Then, he wanted to hear her explain how Sydney had misunderstood her, that she really wasn't a part of SD-6.  It had all been a horrible, terrible misunderstanding.

The taste of bile filled Jack's mouth.  He had been the traitor.  It hadn't known it, but since Laura had joined SD-6, he had been sharing information with the enemy.  How many years had she been lying to him?  How many years had he been betraying his country?  "He didn't know."

Her hands stopped moving.  "What do you mean?"

"He was being used," he told her.  _I was being used_.

He had to make this different from his own story somehow, keep her from knowing the truth.  "He started visiting a _massage_ parlor.  I don't know how he could have been so stupid.  Fell in love with his Chinese masseuse and started sharing his life with her.  He didn't believe it when he was told."  He still didn't believe it.

Laura's arms wrapped around him from behind.  "I'm sorry."

"I am, too.  Sorry that he was so stupid and sorry that she had a brother in Chinese intelligence," he muttered as he stood up.  Laura leaned back onto her side of the bed as he pulled the sheets down and slid in between them.  Her scent and the smell of fabric softener surrounded him.  He almost gagged.

She got in next to him and curled up onto his chest.  The warmth of her body seemed to suck the heat from his.  He wanted to shiver, but he forced himself to remain still.  Kissing his chest, she whispered, "I love you."

For one heartbeat, he felt nothing.  Then a trickle of emotion slipped past the wall.  "I love you, too," he whispered and hated himself for the small truth in those words.

***

"Are you okay, Laura?"

Sloane's hand was on her shoulder.  Forcing her lips into a smile, she nodded.  "I'm fine."

"Problems at home?" he asked as his hand trailed across her back.

She barely kept her mouth shut.  Sloane was a snake, but a skillful one.  Somehow, he could mesmerize anyone, even those that knew who he was.  She wanted to tell him about Jack's strange behavior, but she knew better.  Sloane's jealousy of her husband ran deep.  No one knew as well as she did how deep.

"Everything's fine."  She returned her attention to the file in front of her.

Sloane sank down into the chair in front of her.  Leaning back, he watched her.  "Jack okay?"

Her muscles started to tense but she stopped them before he could see.  Or she hoped that she had.  "He's fine.  Tired.  He worked late last night."

She felt his interest.  His entire focus had shifted from possible information to hurt her--important--to information that could help SD-6--more important.  Looking up at him, she could see nothing but mild amusement in his eyes.  "He even left early this morning."

She didn't tell him that he had left without waking her, something he had never done before.  If she slept in or he left early, he always leaned down to kiss her before going to the office.  She always woke up as she felt him moving beside her.  Her instincts required her to wake up every time, and every time they both smiled as he leaned down for his kiss.  There had been no smile and no kiss this morning.

"Why?"

She shook her head.  "Jack is not a part of this, Sloane.  Remember?  I don't use him for information."

He grinned and she wanted to shiver.  "I find your reluctance to use Jack for information amusing considering the circumstances of your marriage."

Her lips thinned.  "That was a long time ago, Sloane.  A very long time ago."

After standing, he slid around the table.  He put his hands on her shoulder and leaned down next to her ear.  "But it would still matter to Jack.  _All_ of it would."

She was suddenly very glad that he was standing behind her.  He couldn't see her eyes, the windows to the soul that she couldn't control right now.  They were full of rage and misery, but he couldn't see the result of his words.  He could feel her tension, her anger, but he couldn't feel her fear.  "Yes, it would," he whispered as he stroked her hair.

"How's Emily?" she asked him.

His fingers tightened on her shoulders before he pulled away.  He hated hearing her mention his wife's name, hated her for reminding him of his own betrayals.  "She's not doing well; the doctors are considering a different treatment for her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Laura said.  She looked down at her hands as she thought about the beautiful, kind woman that loved Arvin Sloane with a devotion Laura could not understand.

Then, she thought about Jack and her own devotion to him.  Of his devotion to her.  Like Emily, he was an incredible person, full of goodness and light, and he was married to a traitor.  She and Sloane had betrayed countries, and, more importantly, the ideas and beliefs that their spouses held dear.

"I want to tell her," she said suddenly.

"What?"  He sounded distracted, as if he were still thinking of Emily.

She turned and looked at the man she had hated for twenty years.  "I want to tell Sydney the truth about me."

Sloane chuckled.  "The entire truth?"  He watched her face, studied her, and she hated him even more.  "I didn't think so.  However, if that is what you would like to do, it would make it easier on us to have you near at hand."

Laura wondered if she had made a mistake.

***

Vaughn sighed as Janet used the intercom to announce his presence.  He relaxed when he heard Jack's voice telling his secretary to show him in.  Not that he thought Jack would refuse to see him, but today had been one crappy day.

Jack was standing when they entered his spacious office.  His assignment at Jennings Aerospace was a plum job that anyone back at the LA headquarters of the CIA would appreciate.  Jack had a nice title in the company that, while legitimate, had very close ties with the CIA.  His office matched his title.  The windows alone were longer than any of the government offices his co-workers had, where cramped working conditions were a way of life.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Vaughn," Jack said as he held out his hand from across his black shiny desk.

Vaughn shook his hand.  "Thanks for seeing me without an appointment," he answered as Janet discreetly shut the door behind her.

As he sat down in his office chair--another deluxe item hundreds of Federal employees would envy him for--Jack was quick to ask the question Vaughn was expecting.  "What are you doing here, Michael?  You are exposed."

Vaughn nodded.  "Somewhat, but not really.  Jack, I had to talk to you."

Jack smiled, but the action only showed the strain on the other man's face.  Vaughn knew some of that tension was mirrored on his own.  His sudden reassignment from routine desk work to handler had caused him some stress, but watching and hearing about the investigation into Jack's life had taken a toll on Vaughn, too.

"It sucks, Jack."

His friend and mentor stared at him for a minute.  Shaking his head, Jack stood and headed towards the bar in the corner.  Vaughn knew that the wood was actually cherry instead of some cheap imitation.  If he had any doubts, the shiny gold plating on the corners told him that the small bar had cost a fortune.

Pouring them both a shot of Bourbon, Jack said, "Fleming just left."

Vaughn nodded as he took the glass Jack offered him.  Fleming was their bug man.  He made weekly checks out at Jennings for any listening devices.  Not that the CIA worried too much about them.  The design of the building included RF interference; cell phones did not even work inside.  "I know.  Weiss told me."

"Did he tell you that Russek was gone for the week, too?"

Vaughn's forehead wrinkled in confusion.  "Who?"

"Anthony Russek.  SD-6's mole here," Jack explained.  His friend and mentor wasn't looking at him.  He was staring out the window, but Vaughn knew he wasn't looking at anything outside either.  "He keeps track of us, and we keep track of them through him.  Not that he knows that we are aware of his activities."

He took a sip of his drink.  "I'm the one who figured out what he was; knew it within days of meeting him.  I got a commendation for my observation, but I guess I should have been looking closer to activities in my own home."

Vaughn ran his free hand through his hair.  "It's not fair, Jack.  For them to question your loyalty--"

"Only makes sense," Jack finished, turning to look at him.  "Vaughn, these last few days, _I_ have questioned my loyalty."

His mouth fell open.  "Jack--"

Turning his back to him again, Jack went over and poured himself another glass.  "I have.  I've wondered if Laura came to me on her own, what I would have done."

"You would have turned her in."

"No, I wouldn't have."  He gulped down the liquid in his glass.  He started to reach for the decanter.  Vaughn watched him jerk back his hand before turning and walking back to the desk.  He sat down with his shoulders slumped forward.  It was an unfamiliar look.  "I wouldn't have turned her in, Michael.  I don't know what I would have done, but I wouldn't have told anyone at the CIA."  
  


Vaughn opened his mouth to disagree.  If he found out that Alice was a spy for SD-6, he would report her in a heartbeat.  He shut his mouth again when he thought about the differences.  Jack had adored his wife for almost thirty years.  Vaughn shifted uncomfortably in his seat when he thought about the attraction he had felt earlier for a woman not Alice.

"I think it's a mistake for me to be Sydney's handler."  The words shot out of his mouth.

Jack looked up at him in surprise.  "Why?"

_Because I'm way too attracted to her_, he thought.  "Because I don't think we get along well enough," was what he said.

An eyebrow lifted.  "Really?  Usually, you and Sydney both get along with everyone."

"Well, Haladki and I don't get along all that great," Vaughn said, trying to ignore the question.

"Haladki gets along better with you than he does anyone else," Jack answered with a smile.  "Now, tell me what happened."

Sighing, Vaughn sank back into the plush chair.  "I had my first meeting with her, and she started giving me the plan of how to take down SD-6."

His body tightened in a very familiar--but completely unwanted--way when he thought about the passion and determination in her voice as she spoke about SD-6.  _You are in her father's office_, he told himself.  The reminder had the desired effect.  Sort of.

He realized Jack was chuckling.  Not at his predicament, but at what he had said.  "My daughter has always been strong willed, Michael.  She's always been very good at organizing.  Laura and I let her plan our trip to Disney World when she was nine."  Jack's smile faded, and he looked down at his hand.  Vaughn noticed him staring at his wedding band.  "Laura said Sydney's strategy was probably the most efficient one ever for that park;  We saw everything we wanted to see."

Vaughn nodded.  "If we were just dealing with the SD-6 that she knew, it would work.  She planned on us going after the money first--a man by the name of Leonard Dreyfus helps bankroll their operations.  Then, we were to go after their arms supplier, Ineni Hassan."

He stopped when he heard Jack suck in a breath.  Revulsion flared from the older man's eyes.  "Has Sydney met him?"  Vaughn nodded, unable to answer with words.  Jack's jaw clenched.  "You want to talk about the absolute slime of the earth?  Ineni Hassan is close to the top of the list."

Jack sighed and stood again.  He strolled over the window.  Putting his hands in his pockets, he shook his head.  "My daughter has met one of the worse men in the world, and my wife let it happen.  Michael, I can accept her being in SD-6 easier than I can accept Laura letting our daughter be dragged in with her."

"Maybe she didn't know what it was then," he offered.

"No," Jack answered.  "She would have come to me the minute she found out if she didn't want to be there.  I know that much about her."

Vaughn couldn't think of anything to comfort his friend.  "I'm sorry."

Jack nodded and turned back to face him.  His professional facade was firmly back in place, and Vaughn knew he was about to wrap up the meeting.  "I know that Sydney is stubborn, Michael, but so are you.  She needs you to be her handler.  That's why I requested it."

"You?"

"Yes, me.  They really don't have a clue how valuable my daughter is going to be, so they didn't give me much resistance when I suggested a junior agent.  It's a good chance for you to show your ability, Michael."

Jack stopped talking and looked at him.  "And I know you'll put her first."

Jack was counting on him to do the job.  Standing, Vaughn nodded and accepted the inevitable.  "If you want me there, Jack--"

"I do."

"Then, I'll be there," he promised.  He thought about her earlier words and his less than adequate response.  "She thinks this mission is going to be over with in a couple of months, Jack.  We know SD-6 is big--not to mention the Alliance--but I just didn't have the intel to prove it to her."

"I'll talk to her.  Thanks," he said as he sat down at his desk.  Vaughn turned and left, hoping that he had just not made a mistake by agreeing to be Sydney's handler.  Every instinct in his body was telling him that it was not a good idea.

As he shut the door behind him, he glanced down at his watch and emitted a soft curse.  Janet looked over at him in surprise.  "I'm sorry.  I just realized that I'm late.  I was supposed to meet my girlfriend for lunch fifteen minutes ago."

Janet nodded in sympathy.

***


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey, Mrs. Bristow," Francie said to her as soon as she stepped into the house.

"Hello, Francie," she replied with a smile on her face.  She had given up years ago trying to get her daughter's friends to use her first name.  "Is Jack or Sydney home?"

"Sydney," the woman who had been her daughter's best friend since middle school answered.  "Do you want to join us for dinner?  We ordered Chinese, and I know we'll have plenty left over."

Charlie, her boyfriend, laughed.  "Yeah, Francie's eyes are always bigger than her stomach.  Which is really funny when you think about the fact that she makes her living deciding how much a room full of people can eat."

Francie rolled her eyes.  "I don't decide on the amount.  I just help prepare it and serve it."  She leaned over and kissed him.

Laura smiled.  She had always felt like a part of Sydney's group of friends.  Except for their formal way of addressing her, they had always made her feel welcomed.  "No, I think I'll wait for Jack.  We haven't eaten together in over a week, and I would like to be able to do it tonight."

"You two are the most romantic people I know," Francie said as she reached up and took down some plates.

Shaking her head, Laura disagreed.  "Jack's the romantic one; I'm the lucky one."

"Hey, Mrs. Bristow."  Will walked into the house behind her.  "Sorry I'm late," he told his friends.  "Litvack called; I had to rewrite a whole piece in the parking lot."  He sat the huge bag of food down on the counter.  "There's a woman in Marina Del Ray who's eating newspapers."

"She's eating it?"  Laura and Francie asked at the same time.

"She's pregnant and apparently it's a condition some women get before they--" Will made a motion towards his stomach.

"Eating newspaper is a condition?"  Francie asked and Laura shook her head.  Ah, the young and childless.  She opened the refrigerator and pulled out two beers.

She offered one to Will as he finished telling his story, "Yeah, yeah. This is what I write about. This is how I make a living. And Litvack says my writing's too judgmental and I'm like, 'Well, who cares? She's not going to read it anyway; she's going to swallow it.'"

All of the young people laughed while Laura smiled at an old memory.  "Chocolate-covered octopus."  Three pairs of eyes shifted their focus to her.  She sipped on her beer.  "When I was pregnant with Sydney, I craved chocolate-covered octopus all the time."  Everyone stared at her with pale faces.  She laughed and looked at Francie.  "Wait until you're pregnant.  If you're lucky, you'll crave something normal like liver."  She looked at the two young men.  "And if you're lucky, you won't be like Jack and be forced to sit across from a woman eating chocolate-covered octopus as you try to eat your own dinner."

Will grinned sheepishly.  "Okay, so maybe I was a little judgmental."

Laura held up her hand, holding her index finger and thumb an inch apart.  "Just a little.  But I liked the story, and I look forward to reading it tomorrow."

"Well, I'll probably still be rewriting it for the next few days.  Maybe it will be in Friday's paper," he answered.

"Just as long as you are free Thursday night," Francie said as she pulled out the last carton of food.  She had ordered a lot of food.

"What's happening Thursday night?"

Francie looked over at Charlie.  With a smile on her face, she answered, "You are required at dinner Thursday.  We are celebrating Charlie's offer."

"An offer?"  Laura took a step closer.  "From where?"

Charlie answered with a shrug.  "Fleming Letterman. That's corporate law. Downtown office."

"That's wonderful," Laura said as she gave him a hug.

Will agreed with her.  He shook Charlie's hand.  "Congratulations."  Laura noticed that Charlie's answering thanks lacked a certain enthusiasm.

"Go get Sydney," Francie was telling Will.  "I'm starving."

Laura saw a strange expression cross Will's face.  He nodded and headed towards her daughter's bedroom.  She wondered why--Shaking her head, she told herself to stop being an agent.  Not everyone had a secret agenda.  Not everyone was like herself.

She watched as Charlie and Francie started dipping out the same amount of food from the same cartons.  "Developing the same tastes already?"

They looked up at her and then down at their matching plates.  Francie laughed.  "Yeah, I guess living together does make you eat alike."

"For the most part."  Laura looked down at the empty bottle of beer in her hands.  "I hated beer when I first started dating Jack, but it seemed like that was all his friends had to offer back then."

Laura could remember standing around, laughing with people that she had been busy judging.  Stupid Americans.  She hated them and she hated their beer--a nasty and vile drink in her opinion.  Then, somehow, she managed to fall in love with a man she thought she hated.  And fell in love with his beverage choices, too.  And his country.

"I'm going to go see what's keeping Will and Sydney.  You all enjoy your dinner," she told them as she tossed the bottle into the recycle bin.

"You, too, Mrs. Bristow."

As she approached Sydney's bedroom door, she heard Will's voice.  He was talking with a passion he didn't usually show.  "C'mon, you know me. You know I can't let this go!"

Sydney also sounded a little upset.  "Will, come on!"

"You took Amy's passport!"  Laura gasped, finally understanding why her daughter had colored her hair and how she had gotten to Taipei.  She had known that the report Sydney had given Sloane had been a lie.

"I know."

"You took her credit card!"  Sydney must have been desperate to include Will in any way.  He never let something go until he had the answers he needed.  She thought about Sydney's face the night she had told her that her life was a lie, that she worked for the very people she thought she had been fighting against.  Sydney had been devastated and desperate.

"I know what happened!" Sydney answered Will.

"You disappeared!"  Even Laura hadn't known where she was.  But Sydney had called Jack, told him that she was going on vacation.  When Jack told her about Sydney's phone call, her heart had started beating again.  Sydney had escaped from Security Section.  At least for a little while longer.

Will was telling Sydney that he couldn't forget when Sydney's pager went off.  Laura's teeth grounded together.  Sydney had barely gone back to duty, and Sloane was already taking advantage of her.  "It's the bank," Sydney announced.  She was probably thankful for the distraction.

Will--when it came to pursuing something important to him--had always reminded Laura of a dog with a bone.  "What was going on with Danny?  Because he must've been in some kind of trouble--"

_Oh, Will_, Laura thought.  Danny was a sweet man who treated my daughter like gold.  The only mistake he made was falling love with a woman who had a secret.  Just like Jack.

Laura could still remember rushing over to that apartment after Sloane had told her.  The plane tickets had been in her hand when she walked into that bathroom.  Looking down at the body in the bathtub, Laura had not been able to feel anything.  Numbness had filled her body.  Then, she heard Sydney returning home.  Hiding in the closet, she felt the numbness being jack hammered out of her as she listened to her daughter's screams.

"I need you to do something," Sydney was saying to her friend.

Laura could hear the resignation in Will's voice; he knew what Sydney wanted.  "You need me to shut up.  I know!"

"I need you to accept what I've already told you."

Laura held her breath when she heard Sydney's words.  What had she told Will?  She couldn't have made the same mistake twice.  Danny was dead because she had talked about SD-6.

She breathed in deeply when she heard Will's reply.  "You haven't told me anything.  You're being so vague!"

_Vague for your security_, Laura thought.  _Vague like I've been for almost thirty years._

"I lost my mind a little," Sydney said.  "I started imagining things."  Not a great excuse, but there wasn't an easy way to explain suddenly needing someone else's passport and credit card.

Will the Bulldog persisted.  "Whatever the hell you're talking about, maybe you're not imagining it.  Syd, this is what I do.  I might be able to find something that the police overlooked!"

Laura closed her eyes against the image of Will's body in a bathtub, covered in blood.  Her fingernails dug into her palms.

"Stop it!"  Sydney was seeing the same image.  Laura could hear it in her voice.  "I'm trying to move on here.  I need your help to do that.  Okay?"

Her smile was sad as she thought about the traits her daughter had inherited from her.  A lot of Sydney was Jack in female form.  Laura had always loved seeing their close relationship, but tonight she had learned that her daughter knew how to manipulate the men in her life just like her mother.  Use their own weaknesses against them.  Will hated to hurt anyone.  Investigating the story hurt Sydney.  Therefore, he would drop it.

She could only hope that Sloane never found out that he had a hint of interest in Danny's death.  Sydney could not afford to lose anyone else.  _She_ couldn't afford to lose anyone else either.  Taking in and exhaling a deep breath, she put on what she thought of as her spy face--"never let them see you sweat" was her motto in the world of intelligence.

She took two steps back and cleared her throat as she began walking towards Sydney's room.  Will looked embarrassed, then he looked relieved after he examined her face and saw no hint that she had overheard his conversation with Sydney.  Her daughter, however, had a look on her face that told Laura that she knew that her mother had been eavesdropping.

"Francie is starving, you two," she told them with a smile on her face.  It hurt.

Will looked down and shuffled from foot to foot.  "Yeah, we were just talking."

Laura put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.  "Well, you had better get to the kitchen before Francie comes after you, because I bet it won't be pretty if she does."

Will nodded and started heading towards the kitchen.  "Yeah, I guess we'd better."

Sydney started to follow him.  "Oh," she said, turning around to face her mother.  "Dad called earlier and said he would be home late again."

"Oh," Laura replied.  Her spy mask almost fell.  She really needed him right now, and he would be here for her if he knew, but she couldn't tell him.  "I was hoping we could have dinner tonight."

"You can eat with us, Mrs. Bristow," Will said, repeating Francie's earlier offer.  "Francie always orders way too much."

"True," Sydney agreed with a cool voice.  "She always does."  Laura could tell by the look on Sydney's face that she didn't want her to accept the invitation.

Laura's smile wobbled for a moment, but years of lying came in handy as she said, "I'm not really hungry right now.  I may come in and grab something later.  Now, go enjoy yourselves."

The two left her alone, and she pretended to herself that it was okay.

***


	5. Chapter 5

"They keep coming back, don't they?"  Dixon said to her as they left the briefing room.

Sydney tried to concentrate on what he was saying.  Her thoughts today kept straying to how different everything was now that she knew the truth about SD-6.  Even the air seemed different, dirtier.  "Who?  You mean Navour?"

Dixon didn't seem to notice her lack of attention as he asked how the man was still able to walk after his last fight with SD-6 agents.  Sydney answered, hoping she was saying something she would have said before turning double.  "If it weren't him, it'd be someone else."

Dixon's reply told her that she still sounded the same, still sounded like she believed in the integrity of SD-6.  "Then let it be someone else.  We kill ourselves to do the right thing.  Meanwhile the bad people keep coming back."

Staring at him, Sydney resisted the urge to tell him that they were the bad people: she and Dixon and their friends milling about them.  They were all "bad" people.

Sloane interrupted their conversation.  "Sydney, do you have a minute?"

"Yes, of course," she answered, resisting the urge to slap him, to strangle him, to hurt him.  It would get easier with time.  She had to believe it would all get easier with time.  Besides, it would not be long before SD-6 no longer existed.

Dixon left them alone after telling them he would be in Tech Ops.  Sloane looked at her in a way she used to think of as caring.  "I know it's going to take you some time to adjust to being back.  I just want to make sure you're all right."

_I'm grieving the loss of my fiancé, a man you murdered.  I've found out that I'm working for the people I thought I was fighting against.  And I now know that mother is a traitor, and not only to her country.  She's betrayed my father by working for you._  "I'm fine.  Thanks," was all she said.

"Good," was his answer, as if he believed it were true.  "I need to show you something."  He opened the office door in front of them.  Sydney couldn't stop herself from showing her surprise, although she knew the reasons for her surprise were not what Sloane thought they were.  "I'll leave you two alone," he said as he left the room.

"I made sure that Sloane wasn't sitting in his office listening to us talk.  The room's clean," Laura told her.

Sydney's entire body remained tense.  Her fingers clenched into fists, but she forced them to relax.  "What is this?"

Laura started to reach out and touch her, but she pulled her hand back.  Maybe the look on Sydney's face was not encouraging.  "I asked Arvin to let me tell you what you already know.  I work for SD-6."

"Arvin?"  Sydney flinched at Laura's use of the name.  "How high up the chain are you?"

Her mother stared at her, and then pushed her hair behind her ear.  "In this office?  High."

"Privy to secrets," Sydney realized.  Her voice trembled as she realized what that meant.

Laura's eyebrows drew together as if she didn't understand the course the conversation was taking.  "Yes.  My clearance is high."

"High enough to know about Danny?  Did you know that was what they were going to do?"  A part of Sydney's brain told her to relax her fingers, that her fingernails were tearing into the palm of her hand.  She didn't relax them.

Laura blanched.  Then, she glanced down at her feet and crossed her arms.  She finally looked up, and Sydney could see the answer in her eyes before she even voiced it.  "Yes."

Sydney barely stopped her hand from slapping her mother.  Laura stepped towards her, a hand stretched towards her.  Sydney stumbled back.  "Don't."  Tears burned her eyes.  "Don't touch me.  Don't talk to me.  Don't."

She turned and rushed from the room.

***

"That didn't go well," Sloane told Laura a few minutes later.

She was barely holding herself together.  She didn't need Sloane pushing her buttons at the moment.  He was a master at it; he knew exactly where to hurt her and what her fears were.  It was how he kept control of her, no matter how hard she fought against the bit.

"No, it didn't."  Laura swallowed.  "She asked me if I had prior knowledge about Danny."  She had considered not telling him, but Sloane would insist on knowing anyway.  He might have even asked Sydney if she refused to tell him.

Sloane walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulder.  "What did you tell her?"

"The truth," Laura admitted.

His hands began massaging her.  "You could have lied.  I would have supported you, told her that you didn't know."

Laura shook her head.  "She would have known."

"I doubt it," he replied.  "There are a lot of truths about you that she doesn't know.  What would be one more?"

Laura almost gasped as the blade of his words stabbed into her.  "I need to go," she told him, stepping away from him.  "I'll talk to you later."

He took her hand before she could stop him.  "You know I'm here for you if you need to talk."

She looked at him, hating him for making the sincere offer, and despising herself for even considering taking him up on it.  As sincere as his offer was, it also held danger for her.  He was a spider building a beautiful web.  He had caught her years ago, but he continued to wrap her tighter into the threads.

The sad thing was that it wasn't personal for him.  He honestly liked her and thought that they had a lot in common.  An idea that made her shiver in revulsion.  But he continued to drain her, to suck the life out of her, because he hated Jack.

"I know, Arvin.  Thank you," she forced herself to say before grabbing the door handle and yanking it open.  She rushed from the room.

***

It was only through sheer force of will that Jack didn't leave the room running.  His feet pounded the floor beneath him as he struggled to control the emotions inside.  He still felt the urge to go back and pound in the face of Bill Miles, a man who had been his friend for years.

He wanted to hit him, even though he understood that Bill was acting as a friend.  The harder the interrogation, the more details they demanded, the easier it would be for them to clear Jack of any wrong doing.

Only Jack didn't think he deserved to be cleared.  He had been betraying the Agency.  Unintentionally, but that didn't change the fact that he had been doing it.  The only reason he was fighting to be vindicated was because Sydney needed him.

"Jack!" Devlin called from behind him.

"I'm really not in the mood to talk," Jack told him as he continued to head down the hallway.

"I know," Devlin said, matching his pace.  "Bill was being a jackass."

"Bill was asking questions that need to be answered," Jack replied as he hit the elevator button.  He watched the light move from floor number to floor number as the elevator made its way up to them.  The pause between each floor seemed hideously long.  The elevator was almost to them when he said, "And I don't have a clue what those answers are, Devlin.  I don't know when my wife was recruited."

"You could get Sydney--"

Jack shook his head.  "Laura would be suspicious if Sydney started asking those types of questions right now.  Sydney doesn't ask those types of questions when she's angry, and Sydney's furious.  In a little while, after Sydney has had time to think through some things, she would ask.  She will ask.  Then, we'll know."

They walked into the empty elevator, and Jack pressed the button for the parking garage.  Devlin stretched out his hand, but he did not push a button.  It took Jack a moment to realize that Devlin was offering him a file folder.  "What's this?"

"You're not supposed to have it, but I thought you would want to read it before you left."

Jack opened it and saw Sydney's familiar scrawl on a crumpled brown paper bag.  Looking at it, he felt like he had fallen down the rabbit hole.  His daughter used to color him pictures on paper bags, and now she was using them to tell him about top-secret meetings.

He quickly read her comments and Michael's detailed notes about their meet.  "Why is Abul Hassein Navour attempting to get twenty-year old intel about nuclear arms?   Why was it even stolen from Moscow in the first place?"

"We don't know," Devlin answered as the bell dinged and the door opened onto the parking garage.  The cool air surrounded them.  "But we hope to know after Sydney passes us the documents at the airport."

As Jack drove back to Jennings' Aerospace, he thought about Sydney's mission.  From what had been written in the file folder, he thought it was too risky.  Too much could go wrong.  Sydney was to give her handler the disks in a brush pass, and then Vaughn was to copy them and give them back to her in another brush pass before she and Dixon left the airport.  

However, since he was in the middle of an intense investigation, and they wouldn't let him get officially involved anyway, he would just have to trust Sydney and Michael to do their jobs.  And worry.

"Hello, Janet," he said as he entered his office.

She smiled at him.  "Hello, sir.  Your wife is here to see you."

Jack stopped in mid-stride.  "Oh, really?"  He forced himself to smile, just as he would have before finding out that Laura was a part of the enemy.  He hated the fact the smile was not totally forced.  "Thank you."

Laura's back was to him when he entered.  Her shoulders were slumped, looking like a stone worn away by the wind, and her head was bowed.  "Hello, sweetheart," he greeted her.  "What are you doing here at this time of day?"

Her smile was strained when she turned to look at him.  "I know you're busy doing damage control, but I really needed to see you."

She walked over and wrapped her arms around him.  Her familiar scent caressed his nostrils, and he noticed how vulnerable she looked and felt as her head rested against his chest.  She looked and felt like his wife, the one who had always leaned on him.  The one he had always leaned on.  His arms went around her automatically.

He felt her relaxing.  "I'm sorry.  It's been a rough couple of weeks, and I really needed a hug," she mumbled into his chest.

As he felt his own muscles relaxing, he silently agreed with her.  The last week had been hell, and he had been needing a hug, too.  Funny how people notice things after they are gone.  Somehow even the terrible days used to never seem all that bad when he knew he could fall into his wife's arms at the end of them.  Holding her close, thinking about the truth and the pounding questions he was receiving and asking himself, he allowed himself a brief minute to just enjoy the comfort of her arms.


	6. Chapter 6

Vaughn sat staring at his office wall.  He had been looking at Alice's picture earlier, but guilt ate at him as he studied her smiling face.  Because he kept seeing Sydney's face instead of hers.

His best friend walked in and smiled at him.  "Any word from her yet?"

"No," Vaughn told him, feeling both relaxed and nervous at the same time.  "I don't expect to hear anything 'til she gets back."

Weiss looked at him, and Vaughn knew what that he was seeing more than Vaughn wanted him to see.  "Your girlfriend's name is Alice, right?"

"Would you shut up?"

His friend continued to tease him.  "I'm just checking to see--"

"Get out of my office," Vaughn told him with a grin on his face.

Weiss left, but Vaughn's thoughts didn't leave with him.  He was way too attracted to Sydney Bristow.  He couldn't even say why; he had seen pictures of her for years from their place of prominence on Jack's desk and walls.  He hadn't felt anything looking at that smiling face from the frames, but after he met her, he couldn't stop thinking about her.

He remembered when Jack used to tease him about introducing him to his daughter.  It had been years since he had mentioned it.  In fact, Vaughn didn't think Jack had mentioned it since Vaughn told him that he planned to join the CIA.  It didn't matter.  Jack had other plans for him now.  Sydney needed him as a handler, not a potential boyfriend.

He looked back over at Alice's picture and ordered himself to get his attention back where it belonged.

***

"Sydney, what are you still doing up?"

She looked up from her studying and smiled.  She saw herself reflected in her father's eyes and knew that she looked terrible.  The exhaustion showed on her face.  "I needed to get this paper done, and I wanted to talk to you."  He looked towards his bedroom.  "Mom's asleep," she told him.  "We had a really--"

He shook his head as he sat down his briefcase.  "Not here.  Let's go for a walk."

Sydney nodded and shut her book as she stood.  The night air surrounded them as they stepped outside.  She shivered.  "Do you want my jacket?"  He began to unbuttoning it.

She shook her head.  "No.  I just--"

They were both silent as they walked past the swimming pool.  He spoke first, his voice strained.  "I heard that today's operation was close."

"Yes," she agreed.  "Because the disks were encrypted, Vaughn almost didn't get them back to me."  She looked away from him and fought the tears away.  They stayed in her voice.  "I ran home after the debriefing and took a bath.  I felt dirty."

He put his arm around her as they continued to walk around the back yard.  Kissing the top of her head, he muttered, "Being a double is a dirty job, Sydney.  I wish you had agreed to witness protection."

"I know."  She put her arm around his waist and squeezed.  "I know."

She stopped walking and turned to look up at him.  He closed his eyes and then looked back at her.  He knew she was about to tell him something that he didn't want to hear.  "Dad, before I left, Mom told me that she worked for SD-6."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise; he obviously thought the strain had gotten to her.  "Sydney--"

She shook her head.  "I mean at the bank.  She asked Sloane, and he let her tell me."

"Damn."  He looked away, and she knew he was hiding his reaction to her.  "How close are they?"

"She calls him 'Arvin'."  Sydney heard the bitterness in her own voice.

Jack chuckled.  "Well, I did, too, at one time."

"What?"  Her face showed her surprise, despite her effort to hide it.

"Sloane was at our wedding.  He was a close friend of mine," he told her, putting his hands in his pockets.

"What?"

Jack reached out and pushed her hair away from her face.  "He worked for the CIA back then."

"Why did he leave?"

"I can't tell you that."

Sydney felt a flash of anger.  "Can't?  Or won't?"

"Won't."  Sydney's jaw clenched as Jack smiled.  "You don't have the clearance, Sydney."  He leaned closer to her, looking into her eyes.  "I'm an old rule follower."

She thought about the rule she recently broke and the consequences.  "I should, more than anybody, know the consequences for breaking rules."

"Sydney!" He pulled her into his arms and hugged her.  She breathed in the scent of his cologne and remembered all the times he had held her when she was a little girl.  Everything had been okay when she had been in her daddy's arms.  "I didn't mean it that way."

"I know," she told him.  "But I should."  She sighed and pulled away.  "Okay, I guess I'll accept that answer."

"For now," Jack told her, knowing what she was thinking.

She tried to smile.  "For now."

"So, your mother told you.  I guess that means you'll be seeing her more at work.  Which is good."  He looked everywhere but at her.

"If I want to spy on my own mother," Sydney said bitterly.  Jack didn't say anything and she realized, "They've ordered you to spy on Mom, haven't they?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."  He turned and walked a few steps away from her.  Staring up at the sky, he said, "She made her choices, and we both have to live with the consequences."

Sydney remembered something that had occurred to her on the way home.  "What are the consequences for you, Dad?"

"Don't worry about me, Sydney.  You have no responsibility for anyone besides yourself."

She walked up behind him.  "I love you, Dad."

He turned to look at her.  His smile was tired.  "I love you, too."

Silence filled the air again.  Somewhere, someone honked a horn.  Sydney tried to gather her courage and tell him what she had learned.

"We should go back--"

"Mom knew what they were going to do to Danny," she told him.

He stopped walking.  He became completely still.  It didn't look like he was even breathing.  "What?"

"I asked Mom at the bank if she knew, and she told me that she did."  Sydney hated telling him this, but she had to talk to someone about it to tell someone about what she had found out tonight.

"What she didn't tell me was that she tried to stop it."

He turned slowly to look at her.  She saw the flash of hope in his eyes.  "How?"

"Tonight, I had dinner with Will and Francie, and Will told me that Danny had plane tickets to Singapore."

He suddenly became the focused agent again.  It was amazing for Sydney to watch.  "Will?"

"He's been investigating Danny's death."

"What?"  Jack cursed and Sydney flinched in surprise.  She wasn't used to seeing her dad angry.  "Sydney, he'll be killed if he gets too close to SD-6."

Tears filled her eyes again.  "I know, Dad.  I made him promise not to look into it anymore."

Jack began to pace.  "So, you believe Laura tried to save Danny."

"Yes.  Dad, when she told me that she knew, I hated her.  But when Will told me about that plane ticket--"

"I'll tell Michael about it tomorrow.  Have him check into it."  Sydney could hear the despair and the hope in his voice.  "And see if your mom was the one that bought the ticket."

"She did.  She loved Danny, Dad.  You know that," she told him.

He stared at her.  "Why is it so important to convince me?"

Sydney sniffed.  "Because she's my mother.  And you're my father."

He shook his head and Sydney saw defeat rest on his shoulders.  "The past is the past, Sydney.  We can't go back to it."

"Dad, she tried to save Danny.  We don't know, yet--"

"The past is the past," he repeated.  "Now, go to bed and get some rest."  He kissed her forehead and left her alone in the yard.


	7. Chapter 7

"What were you and Syd talking about?" Laura asked her husband as soon as he entered the room.  She reached over and touched the lamp.  A soft glow filled the room.  Jack jerked and walked over towards the dresser.  He began emptying his pockets.

"Starting to spy on me, Laura?" he joked.

She barely kept herself from wincing.  "I went for a glass of water and saw you both outside."

"We didn't want to wake you," he answered as he began taking off his clothes.

She nodded and wondered when he had grown so distant with her.  Her relationship with Sydney was uneasy right now, but she believed time would heal the wound.  Her daughter would understand one day.

"I noticed that it seemed a little tense," she told him.  For the first time ever, it was hard to talk to him.  She felt like he was behind glass, and she couldn't reach him.

Why her marriage felt like it was crumbling she didn't understand.  For most of her life, she had felt as if she lived inside one gossamer thread.  It would not take much to unravel her world, destroy it.  It was why she was willing to sacrifice anything to keep it.  Her desire to keep what was hers was what Sloane used against her.  It was how he kept her under control.

Jack closed the closet doors.  "Sydney's upset that I've not been home more lately.  I tried to explain to her, but--"

"She doesn't know how important your job is," Laura said.

He sank down onto the bed, his back to her.  "Maybe I should tell her the truth now."

She couldn't breathe.  "No!"

He looked back at her.  "You think she would hate me for lying all these years."

"No," Laura answered.  There would only be one parent that Sydney would hate, and it would not be her father.  "I don't want her to worry."

"I'm a desk jockey, Laura.  Not too dangerous anymore."

She played with the material of her nightgown.  The silk caressed her fingertips.  "I still worry," she admitted.  It was the truth.  She couldn't tell him that she knew bad things sometimes happened to support personnel, too.

He was quiet for several heartbeats.  "Do you ever wish I had never told you?"

When he told her, she had been thrilled.  He had been falling under her spell, was going to share his world with her, and she would share it with her superiors.  She had known who and what he was before they even met.  Tears pricked at her eyes as she looked into his and told him the truth.  "If you hadn't told me, we would have a very different marriage, and I can't regret a moment of it."

She leaned over and kissed him, and she was gratified to feel his lips move beneath hers.  He stroked her hair.  "I love you so much, Jack."

He pulled away and looked at her, studied her as if he didn't know who she was.  Then, he smiled.  "I love you, too."

Clearing his throat, he pulled away from her and stood up from the bed.  He pulled back the covers and got underneath them.  After turning out the light, she slid over and laid herself on his chest.

"Sydney seems to think that you have been needing me," he announced to the darkness.

Laura smiled, pleased to hear that Sydney was worried about her again.  "I always do."

"She tells me that you've been acting really stressed out."

Now was her opening.  She wanted to talk about their relationship, wanted to heal whatever rifts were between them, but she had other priorities.  Sloane made sure of it.  "I hate my job."

"You've always seemed to enjoy it."  He rubbed her back.

"I did.  I have.  Jack, when I quit teaching and started working for the Foundation, I thought we were going to make a difference in schools.  A real difference.  We would help implement new ideas and techniques, but it really hasn't worked out that way.  Or maybe I'm just burnt out like a lot of other teachers."  She had loved teaching.  She really had, but Sloane had forced her to give up the classroom when for SD-6's convenience.  Now she was giving up education all together.

"Well, you can look for another job or just quit.  We don't need your income," he told her.

"No, but it makes for a nicer retirement," she supplied.  She wanted to quit.  Leave it all behind.  Just be a normal person with her husband.

Kissing her forehead, he mumbled, "Do what you want to do.  You know I'll support you."

"You always have," she told him.  She thought she felt him tense beneath her for a second, but then she decided that she had imagined it.  "I ran into Sydney's boss the other day."

"Dixon?"

Dixon had always found it amusing to play Syd's boss.  He hadn't understood why Sloane's name was not supposed to be mentioned in the Bristow house anymore than Sydney had.  "Yeah, Dixon.  He offered me a job as a portfolio manager."

"You?  Working at a bank?"  His hand stilled on her back.  "Are you sure you would enjoy that?"

"I think it would be fun to work with Sydney," she told him.  She placed her palm against his chest and rested her chin on her hand.  "You know how much I love playing with investments.  I think I would be great at it.  And the pay is excellent." 

"So, you're going to work at the bank now," he said as if he already had known.  "Go for it.  You can always quit if you hate it."

"True," she agreed.  She pushed herself up and kissed him.

When her hand started to wander down his body, he stopped it.  "I'm sorry.  I'm just so tired lately."

She blushed.  "I'm sorry.  It's been so long, and I miss you."

He pulled her down for a passionate kiss.  "I've missed my wife, too.  A lot more than you realize."

She lay back down on his chest.  "I'll be so glad when the clean-up is over.  I can't wait to have my husband back."

"I keep telling myself that everything will be over soon," he whispered.

***

Jack sipped on his glass of bourbon.  Another long day of interrogations, followed by hinted allegations.  He wanted them to outright accuse him.  It was easier to fight against those types of accusations.  Reacting to snide hints only made someone look guilty.

He really wanted to beat the hell out of Bill Miles now.  He was good at his job.

"I'm being taken off Sydney's case," Vaughn said from beside him.

He looked up at the younger man in surprise.  He had not even heard him approaching.  "What?  Why?"

"Devlin pulled me off of it," Vaughn told him after ordering a whiskey sour.  "Wants a more senior agent to be her handler.  I pointed out how much of an asset she was to keep them from getting her killed, and that's how they handled it."

"Slow down," Jack told him.  "Take a deep breath, and then tell me what the hell is going on."

Vaughn smiled his thanks at the bartender, and then did what Jack asked of him.  He lowered his voice to where Jack could barely hear it over the din of the bar.  "We found out why Navour was trying to get twenty-year old intel."

"Why?"

"You've heard of Doomsday Six?" Vaughn asked him.

Jack nodded and took another sip of his drink.  "Yeah.  In 1989, the US government was informed of that operation.  Six nuclear weapons had been smuggled into the US.  We recovered and disarmed them."

"There were seven."

He knew the horror he felt was showing on his face, but he was too tired to hide it.  "Damn."

"Well, Sydney only had time to call me and tell me that she was going to go see Ivanov--which didn't make any sense to me," Vaughn admitted with a grimace.  He chewed on the cherry from his glass.

"It doesn't make any sense to me, either," Jack admitted, feeling a sense of dread pooling in his stomach.

Vaughn shrugged.  "Well, I can know tell you that she went to see Milovich Ivanov in Buckingham, Virginia.  His name was on the disk."

"The babysitter of the nuke?" Jack guessed.

"You could say that," Vaughn said with a grimace.  "It was buried in his grave."  He rubbed the back of his neck.  "We were a little slower getting that information off the disks.  When my boss realized what was happening, he wanted to send in a team to get the nuke out."

Jack took a long drink from his glass.  "That would have exposed her."

"Yeah," Vaughn agreed, looking down at his feet.

"You talked him out of it."  It wasn't a question.  Jack knew the Intelligence community.

"Yes, I did.  Then, Sydney called SD-6 to help her disarm the nuke."

Jack barely kept his drink in his mouth.  "She disarmed a nuke?"

Vaughn nodded.  "I was upset that she didn't call us, but she trusted Marshall to help her more."

"Marshall?"  How little did he know about his daughter's life?

Sympathy crossed Vaughn's face.  "SD-6's top tech guy."

Jack nodded.  "She disarmed it."

"Eleven seconds," Vaughn said, answering the question Jack didn't have the courage to ask.  "She had eleven seconds left."

The world stopped for a moment as Jack thought about those eleven seconds.  As he sat in his office, his daughter had been eleven seconds away from being evaporated.

"I'm sorry," Vaughn said, putting his hand on Jack's shoulder and squeezing.  Jack pointed his finger at his glass and the bartender nodded.  "Jack, it's two o'clock in the afternoon."

"I know what time it is, Michael."  Jack's voice was a snarl.  He struggled to breathe, and then he asked.  "Who did they assign to be her new handler?"

"They haven't told me, yet."

Jack shook his head.  "Let me know as soon as you find out.  I'll try to talk to Devlin about it later, but--" He took a deep breath.  He swallowed some more of the bourbon.  "They don't want me involved.  I'm too close."

Vaughn nodded as he paid for his drink.  "Are you all right, Jack?"

"I'm fine."

"You've never lied to me before.  Even when I was a kid and Mom wanted you to," Vaughn said after a few moments.

Jack looked back at him and then sipped on his drink.  An old guilt tickled the back of his throat.  "I thought you deserved to know the truth."

"You were right," Vaughn said.  "Mom even admits that now."

"She admitted it then; she called me the next day to thank me because you had slept through the entire night," Jack said, remembering those long-ago days.  It was when he had first met Michael.  He had been investigating William Vaughn's death, and he acknowledged that his interest had been personal, but young Michael had managed to make it more personal.

"You're unraveling, Jack, and I don't know what to do."

Jack squeezed his eyes shut.  Then, after taking another sip of his drink, he said, "I'll tell you what to do, Michael: handler or not, you make sure that Sydney is safe.  That's all I need from you, Michael.  Keep Sydney safe."

***

Laura entered Sloane's office with a smile on her lips.  She had applied the makeup heavy this morning.  The little sleep she had been getting lately was beginning to take its toll on her.  "Good morning, Arvin.  Did Sydney already call you?"

"Yes, she did."  Sloane told her.  "What's wrong with her?"

"Stress.  Strain.  Jack sent her up north.  She needed some time away.  She will be fine," Laura finished with a certainty she didn't feel.  "Finding out about me after what happened with Danny has been hard for her."  She almost stumbled over the young man's name.  Sydney had confronted her that morning and demanded to know if she had been the one to make the plane reservations.  She had told her the truth, wanting her to understand that she had done what she could to save him.  Then, she had begun working on a way to get Will off the story.  She could still save that young man.

"Are you all right?"  Sloane asked her.

"I'm fine," she answered with a wave of her hand.  "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," he said, lying back in his chair.  He studied her.  "You seem a little . . ."

"What?" she asked as she struggled to maintain her smile.

He shook his head.  "Nothing.  Nothing."

"Okay.  Well, I'll see you--"

"Laura, is everything okay between you and Jack?"

Her fingers tightened on the doorknob.  "Everything is fine."

"Really?" he asked in a way that told her that he didn't believe her.

"Really," she answered as she opened the door and left the office.


	8. Chapter 8

"It's just weird, having that feeling that someone you love isn't telling you everything."  Francie was talking about her boyfriend Charlie and his lack of enthusiasm for his great job offer.  However, Sydney felt a hot knife cut through her skin at those words.

One side of the blade was guilt because she had not told Francie "everything" since their freshman year in college.  Francie kept no secrets from her, and thought Sydney was the same way with her.

The other side of the blade was her own pain.  Her father had been lying to her for years, but she could accept it.  She had never told him about her spying career for the same reasons that he had never admitted the truth to her.  However, her mother's betrayal she was having a hard time accepting.  Maybe because her mother had yet to tell her everything.

"Your dad is great.  It's nice knowing that you can always depend upon him for advice," Sydney told her, referring to Francie's earlier revelation about her phone call with her father.  He had told Francie that Charlie was one of the good ones.

"You know what is so irritating?  Our dads are always right," Francie said.

Sydney laughed and took a sip of her lemonade.  "Oh, yeah.  Always.  It's not fair."

Francie laughed with her.  "No, it's not, but it's great.  We were both lucky with our parents."

"I wouldn't pick any others," Sydney said, realizing it was the truth.  Even with all the secrets still between them, she loved her mother.

Francie stared at her.  She leaned back and studied her some more.  "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"  Sydney asked, nibbling on her lip.

Sighing, Francie sipped her lemonade.  "I mean that you and your mom have not been acting normal lately."

Sydney stared at her friend, surprised by her insights, although she knew she shouldn't be.  No amount of training had helped her act the same way towards her mother at home.  There was a wall between them, and Sydney had not even tried to cross it.  "We've been fighting a lot lately."

"Why?"  Francie's eyes glowed with compassion and understanding.

Rubbing her hands against her jeans, Sydney tried to tell her friend as much of the truth as she could.  Then, she realized she couldn't share even a small sliver of the truth.  "I found out my mom's a liar," would create more questions than it would answer.  "Mom's been trying to protect me, and I've been pushing her away.  I think I'm ready to move out on my own, and she wants me to stay here a little longer."

Francie finished her lemonade before she said anything.  "I think you need to move out, too."

Sydney looked up at her with her eyes widened.  "Really?"

"Yeah, really.  You came home after Danny died, Sydney, and you hid here.  It was your safety blanket," her friend told her with perfect honesty.  Sydney sometimes resented that honesty, resented the fact she couldn't share in it.

She thought about Francie's words and the truth they held.  Home had been a safety blanket, at least until she had learned about her mother's real job.  In some ways, it still was.  Her father was near at hand if she had any questions or problems.  "You're right."  She finished off her own glass of lemonade.  "I'm going to start looking for my own apartment next week.  After I get that paper done."

Francie grinned and then looked serious again.  "Can I offer some more advice?"  Sydney let her face answer for her.  "Go and talk to your mom.  Just talk; tell her what you are feeling.  You've always been good at talking."

***

"Hey, Jack, do you have a few minutes?"  Vaughn called out to him as he walked past.

Schooling his face into an expressionless expression, Jack turned and walked into his friend's office.  "Of course, I do, Michael.  What do you need?"

Vaughn played with a piece of paper on his desk.  "Has Devlin told you about--?"

"Cairo?" Jack finished.  He unbuttoned his jacket and sat down in the chair across the desk.  "Yes, he did."  His teeth protested at the force his jaw was exerting.  He forced his mouth to relax.  He worked his jaw from side to side in an effort to release some of the tension.  "Sydney did a wonderful job recovering the core."

Running his hand through his hair, Vaughn nodded.  "Yeah, she did."

Jack thought about Sydney tossing that core in the air.  He thought about everything she wrote in that report, and his stomach rolled in protest.  His little girl should be safe at home instead of out in the world risking everything to bring down evil.  He was so damn proud of her.

Vaughn looked down at his watch and said, "I have a meet with Sydney in an hour.  I have to tell her what her countermission is."

"Which is?" Jack asked before he could help himself.  He knew he should stay out of it.  He was too close, too emotionally involved.  He knew it just as sure as he knew that there was no way in hell that he would.

He saw a flash of understanding in Vaughn's eyes.  "Basically, the same mission she has for SD-6.  We want the code that Eduardo Beneges has, too."

"Yes, Devlin mentioned that earlier."  Jack nodded.  "Any hint on the Rambaldi documents is important if we are going to ever understand him."

Vaughn laughed and leaned back in his chair.  "Oh, come on, Jack.  You don't believe in this prophet crap, do you?"

Jack stared at him and then looked down at his own shoes.  "I don't, Michael.  I believe in data and evidence, not ESP, but the facts where Rambaldi are concerned--" He shrugged.  "I don't know."

Vaughn crumpled up a piece of paper and tossed it into his trashcan.  "The little information that Devlin shared with me about the guy makes me think of da Vinci combined with Nostradamus."

"That about sums him up.  Michael, don't let your personal prejudice interfere here.  There is a lot of information you don't know--that I don't know.  He has a small group of followers; he's never been noticed much before because he was so far ahead of the game that his opponents couldn't even understand him."

"I don't believe I'm hearing Jack Bristow talking."

Jack didn't believe it was him talking either.  "He died in 1496, Michael."

"I know," Vaughn answered with a nod.  "Devlin mentioned it.  Said he was Pope Alexander VI's chief architect, and that he was burned to death for suggesting that someday science would allow us to know God."

"After he died, his plans and sketches were traded and sold," Jack shared.  "No one even understood them then, but last March, a Russian historian found one of Rambaldi's early designs.  It looked a lot like a transistor."

Vaughn stared at him.  "Coincidence."

Jack smiled, really smiled for the first time in a long time.  "Come on, Michael.  You read what Sydney wrote."  Vaughn looked at him in surprise.  "Yes, Devlin's been letting me see her files."  He leaned forward.  "She said that SD-6 has some of his work: a rudimentary schematic for a transportable vocal communicator."

"A cell phone."

"Yes," Jack said, excited.  "This man was drawing cell phones when people weren't even sending mail.  Think about what else he may have drawn.  Michael, he spent the last ten years of his life working on one project.  Just one.  We don't have any idea what it might be, but almost every intelligence agency in the world is working on this project.  It needs to be our focus, too."

Vaughn grinned.  "It's good to see you excited about something."

"Well, I haven't had a whole lot to be excited about lately," Jack admitted.  He stared at his friend.  "I'm trying, Michael.  I'm trying."  Trying to hold it all together.  Trying to not unravel like the world around him was doing.

"It's been almost a month," Vaughn snapped, suddenly looking furious.  "They should have given you the all clear by now."

Jack leaned forward, resting an elbow on the desk.  "I'm sorry if I hadn't told you this before, but we work for the federal government."

"And they never move fast," Vaughn sighed as he grinned.  He rubbed the back of his neck.  "I know, but it still pisses me off."

Jack didn't share his friend's anger; he deserved anything they gave him.  He had been so stupid for so long.  Blind.  Maybe the part of himself that he was the most upset with was the part that yearned to return to blindness.  The part that wanted to believe that his wife had never betrayed him.  The part that believed Laura's claims of love.

"Tell her to be careful for me.  She has a history with Anna Espinosa," Jack said as he stood.  Vaughn nodded and didn't say anything as the older man left the office


	9. Chapter 9

Every muscle in Laura's body relaxed when she walked into her home.  She almost felt safe here.  Almost, but Jack's arms were the only place she totally felt secure.  She leaned back against the wall and enjoyed the coolness seeping into her sweat-soaked jacket.  They needed to head up north, too.  Just her and Jack.  She would talk to him tonight and--

The sound of the kids laughing in the den made her smile.  Feeling a renewed energy, she dropped her briefcase over on a table and walked into the den.  All of the young faces--including Sydney's--looked happy to see her.  "Hey, guys, how are you doing?"

"We're doing great, Mrs. Bristow," Francie said, pointing to her margarita and pile of poker chips.  The others laughed their agreement.  "And we're about to hear another eye story."

Laura sank down onto the overstuffed Ethan Allen couch.  "An eye story?"

Will blushed.  "You know that I'm legally blind without my contacts?  Well, I was just going to tell them about the first day in my apartment," he went on after she nodded.  Francie asked for two cards.  "I'm in the kitchen eating cereal for like, five minutes.  And I hear someone coughing."  He looked over at Laura and blushed again.  "I put on my glasses and there's three men painting my walls.  I totally forgot that they were coming."

They all laughed.  "That's bad," Charlie said.

Sydney snorted.  "No, the bad thing was, he was naked."  

Resisting the impulse to say "poor Will" and embarrass him more, Laura laughed with the rest of them.  She relaxed as their conversation continued.  She really did need to get away from work, from Sloane and the strain.  She would talk to Jack about it tonight.  Lost in thought, it took her a moment to realize that everyone was looking at her, waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't heard.  "I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Francie said with a smile.  "I was just asking how come I can never tell when Sydney is bluffing."

"Well, Jack and I taught her well," Laura answered with a grin.  She let herself wince inside.  Yes, she had taught her daughter well.  How to lie with a smile.

Francie was nodding her agreement.  "True.  I mean, I can't tell when any of the Bristows are bluffing.  Now, I can always tell when Will is bluffing."

"Always," Sydney agreed with a laugh as Will's phone rang.  He answered it and walked into the kitchen.

"Maybe I should see for myself about this Bristow thing," Charlie said.  "Want to join us, Mrs. Bristow?"

She opened her mouth to say yes, but the look on Sydney's face stopped her.  Her daughter might be relaxing somewhat around her, but she hadn't forgiven her, yet.  "No, not tonight."  She stood up from the couch and stretched.  "I'm going to go on to bed and get some rest.  You all enjoy yourselves."

As she left the room, she heard Charlie mention the time.  It was late.  She heard Will finishing up his conversation.  "What's weird?" she asked when she saw him hang up his cell phone.

Will turned, looking like a deer caught in headlights.  "Huh?  Oh, a stupid article I gotta write."

"Well, I'm going to bed.  I just wanted to say goodnight."

"Goodnight, Mrs. Bristow.  See you tomorrow."

She walked to her room, hoping all the way that Jack would come home early tonight.

***

Jack hesitated before he opened the door.  His home used to always welcome him, but now he dreaded going home.  He wished he could sleep in his office, but that would raise far too many questions he couldn't answer.  Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

And found his daughter kissing one of her closest friends.  They both pulled away and looked at him and then each other.  "I left that box in my car," Will stuttered.  "It's Danny's.  I'm going to go get it before I forget it.  Hi, Mr. Bristow," he muttered as he rushed past him.

Jack watched him go and then looked at his daughter.  "Danny's?"

Sydney nibbled on her lip and nodded.  "Yeah, his landlord called earlier and told me they found more of his stuff in the garage.  Will agreed to go pick it up for me."

"Sydney," Jack said as he stepped closer to her.  "Will's too good of a man and a friend for you to use him this way."

She looked up at him as if he had slapped her.  "I know."

"Well, I'll leave you--"

She put her hand on his elbow to stop him.  "I met Lambert tonight."

Jack looked over his shoulder.  "Sydney, this isn't--"

"Just because he wanted to meet me," she muttered.

"Damn," Jack said.  "He's an idiot."

"I know.  I couldn't believe it--"

"Look," he whispered.  "I'll talk to Devlin about it, but he's not going to want to hear it from me.  You may have to take care of it yourself."

"How?"

Jack opened his mouth to tell her just as the door swung open.  He put down his briefcase, and said, "Let me help you with that.  I'll take it on back to your bedroom, Sydney."

"Thanks, Dad," she answered him.  Her arms were crossed, and he noticed that she was shifting from foot to foot.  Hopefully, she would do the right thing and talk to Will tonight.

"Are you staying the night, Will?"

Will actually blushed.  "N-no, Sir."

"You are not driving home in your condition."  Jack wouldn't let him.  He would drive him home himself if needed.

"I called a taxi on my way out to the car," Will answered.

"Smart thinking," Jack told him.  "Goodnight, you two."  Their answering goodnights followed him down the hall.  After placing the box on Sydney's bed, he stumbled into his own bedroom.  He wasn't surprised to find Laura still waiting up for him.

Just as she had so many times before.

"Hi, honey," she said when she saw him.  She put her book down on the nightstand.  "How are you doing?"

"Okay," he answered, tired of lying to her.

He could feel her eyes staring holes into his back.  "What's happened?"

Resisting the impulse to tell her the entire truth, he said instead, "I caught Sydney kissing Will."

"What?"  The rustling of silk told him that Laura had gotten out of the bed.  He could hear her footfalls as she walked to him.  Just as he knew as she would.  After almost thirty years of marriage, he had thought he knew almost everything about her.  Only he hadn't.

He began unbuttoning his oxford shirt.  "They both were a little tipsy."

Laura shook her head.  "Sydney knows how he feels about her."

"I told her that he was too good of a friend to be used."  He stared down at his own hands, paused in the middle of unbuttoning a shirt.  "But it's easy to make mistakes when you are tired and lonely."

She put her hand over his.  "Are you okay, Jack?"

_I'm tired and lonely._  "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too."  She leaned in and kissed him.  His brain told him that this was a mistake, but everything else told him it wasn't.  He drew her into his arms and kissed her back.


	10. Chapter 10

"Are you okay, Dad?"  Sydney asked as she watched her father pour his second cup of coffee.  He had just poured out the remainder of the first cup.

"I'm fine," he muttered.  She knew he was lying.  After glancing down the hallway, he said to her.  "You are the only double agent they have in SD-6.  They need you.  You have the power, and you should use it."

She munched on her cereal.  "You mean force them to reassign Vaughn to my case."

"Him, or at least someone smart enough to know this isn't a game you are playing," he told her before taking a sip from his steaming cup.

Sydney looked down the hallway.  "Dad, does Mom know?"

"What?"

"About your job.  Does she know that you work for the CIA?" she asked.

His eyes shone with compassion.  He knew that she was looking for an excuse.  "She's always known, Sydney.  It was no secret between us, even before we were married.  I'm not the one keeping secrets in this marriage."

They both heard the bedroom door squeak.  Sydney watched her father's shoulders tense as her mother breezed into the room.  "Good morning!"

"Good morning," Jack muttered.  Sydney smiled her greeting as she took another bite of her cereal.  "I need to get going."

Sydney watched in surprise as her mother and father kissed.  She took her eyes off them and began studying her cereal.  The recent tension between the two of them had bothered her more than she wanted to admit.  She understood her father's anger; she shared it.  But now that anger had burned its course, and she wanted answers, explanation.  She wanted to hear Laura Bristow explain her choices, so that maybe she could forgive her.

"Mom," she said after Jack had left.  "How about we go out to dinner?"

"You want to go out?"  Laura asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Yeah, I want to go out.  After work settles down."  Sydney stared at her mother.  "I have a lot of questions to ask you."

Laura sipped her coffee, and Sydney could see that she was lost in thought.  "Okay," she finally said.  "When everything slows down at work, we'll go out for dinner."  
  


***

"Hey, Dad," Sydney said as she walked into his office.

He smiled and kissed her on the cheek.  "Hey, sweetheart.  How are you doing?"

"Good," she answered as she slid into the chair.  He smiled at the sight.  She had spent a lot of her teenage years sitting in the chairs across from his desk.  "Work is finally slowing down."

Jack sighed.  "You could say that.  I read your recent debriefing."

She had stolen a case out from the nose of Anna Espinosa.  Then, she had met with Anna because K-Directorate had the key to the case.  She had managed to remember the entire code before the page it was written on was destroyed by acid.  Then, she had given it to the CIA and to SD-6.  Reluctantly.  Vaughn had told him that she had been furious about his order to give the correct code to SD-6.  Then, later, in Spain, she had to fight Anna to get a Rambaldi artifact made out of some polymer that SD-6 had been unable to identify.

She had even managed to find out new information about her mother.  Laura had devised the plan to have K-Directorate and SD-6 meet and cooperate instead of having Sydney go into K-Directorate headquarters to steal the key.  So now the CIA knew that Laura Bristow was a game strategist.  Just like him.  He shifted uncomfortably at the thought of how much his wife was like him.

"Did Francie get moved in all right?" he asked.  Sydney nodded, and he could tell that she was uncomfortable about something.  "It really is okay for her to stay with us, Sydney."

She smiled.  "I know; you've always welcomed my friends.  It's just that Charlie's been calling her all morning, and she's refused to talk to him."

"Not the best way to handle a relationship," he said as he sat down.

"No," Sydney agreed.  "Following him instead of talking about it probably wasn't the best thing either."

"No, in a relationship, honesty is . . ." His voice trailed away as he realized that he had no right give that familiar speech anymore.

The pain in Sydney's eyes hurt him.  "Dad, I'm supposed to have dinner with Mom sometime soon.  Now that everything is settling down.  I told her I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her."

Jack's stomach turned.  He didn't want answers.  He craved answers.  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk.  "Sydney, you can't tell her what you are doing."

"Dad--"

"You can't."

Sydney slid her legs out from under herself.  She leaned forward in her chair as she used one hand to push her hair back behind her ears.  "She's my mother."

"And you don't know where her loyalties lie," he snapped.  He didn't know.

"She wouldn't betray me to Sloane," she said.

He stared at her.  "Sydney, the Laura I knew would never betray this country.  She never liked Sloane, not really.  And yet, today she works for him.  I don't know what or who she is loyal to, and I'm not willing to risk your life to find out."

He saw the protest in her eyes.  "I'm also not willing to risk Vaughn or anyone else helping you, either."

The look of protest died; her shoulders slumped.  "Maybe I can find out why."

"Maybe.  But you don't know if she's going to tell you the truth."  He thought about all those trips she had taken over those years.  He had never suspected that anything was wrong.  "She's a wonderful liar, Sydney."

"Like me," she whispered.  He opened his mouth to disagree, and then he thought about those bank trips she had taken over the last seven years.  He shut his mouth without responding.

***

Laura rolled her head around, trying to relieve the knot between her shoulder blades.  She started walking towards McCullough's office, stopping only when Sydney stepped in front of her.  "You have a meeting with Sloane?" her daughter asked.

"No," she told her.  "I've got a session with McCullough.  Not exactly my favorite part of this job, but I'm used to it."

Sydney nodded.  "Everything worked out in Berlin."

"I know," Laura told her.  Even though she had known that the meeting with Anna should have been safe, her stomach had tossed and turned until Sloane told her that Sydney was on her way home.  It had been her plan, and she had been terrified that she had made some error of judgment, an error that would get her daughter killed.  "I need to be going."

"Are you free Thursday night?  Free for our dinner?"  Sydney looked hopeful as she asked.

Laura nodded.  "Sounds wonderful," she answered.  She knew she was lying.  Just as she would be lying Thursday when her daughter demanded answers from her.

Sydney smiled and walked away.

Gathering her courage again, Laura began counting as she walked 

towards McCullough's office.  She hated Psych Evaluations.  Hated them with a passion.  She didn't like having anyone poke and prod into her brain, even if she was an expert at hiding her real self.

McCullough began the session in his usual manner.  He quickly put the pads on her face as he gave his spiel about answering honestly and completely.  He even told her that it was a matter of national security; she didn't laugh in his face but she wanted to.  They both knew that was a lie.  Or maybe it was the truth.  All the junior agents worked so hard to protect a country they were really hurting by their actions.

He began working to relax her.  "You feel light, thin air, and as you continue moving downward, you feel more and more relaxed.  The escalator continues down and the closer you get to the light, the more relaxed you feel."

She saw the escalator in her mind.  She took a deep breath and felt the light, thin air.  Her muscles began to relax.

"The escalator seems to continue forever, and you feel safe and relaxed."

Her lips smiled as her mind provided an image of Sydney's bedroom.  Her first bedroom.  The crib Laura had picked out with Jack's help sat in the corner.  The teddy bear that Grandma Bristow had given her granddaughter smiled at her from the baby bed.  She took a step closer into the place she had first felt safe.

"Still listening to my voice, you keep going and the farther you go, the more comfortable you feel."

Jack stood in front of her.  Her whole body relaxed as she stepped towards him.  He turned, and she saw that Sydney lay in his arms.  Her precious little baby spotted her and began a screaming cry.  Jack's voice was harsh when he told her, "It's only a matter of time before we both find out the truth, Laura."

She gasped and sat up in the chair.  "Are you okay, Mrs. Bristow?"

She began yanking off the pads.  "I'm fine.  Just give me a minute, okay?" she said as she strolled towards the door.  She leaned against it as soon as it closed behind her.  She couldn't take the chance.  She just couldn't.


	11. Chapter 11

"Sydney is on her way back from Morocco," Jack said as he sat down across from Vaughn.

The disheveled man across from him nodded.  Jack studied him as he told the waiter his order.  Vaughn muttered his, and the waiter left them alone.  Jack noted the rumpled tie, the skewed jacket, and the heavy eyelids.  Some men could take an expensive, tailor-made suit and make it look like it was bought off the rack.  Others had the fortunate ability to make an off-the-rack suit look like it was tailor-made.

"You look like hell."

Vaughn nodded and played with his napkin-wrapped silverware.  "Yeah, I've been fighting with Alice."

"I heard."  Vaughn looked up at him.  "It has been the talk of the town, so to speak."

"She thinks I've been too distant lately."  He spit the words out like a machine gun.  "I told her that I've been busy at work, but--"

"She doesn't believe you," Jack finished.  It was time to have the conversation he had been putting off.

Vaughn shook his head.  "No, she doesn't.  She thinks . . ." His voice trailed away, and Jack knew exactly what she was thinking.  Alice was a smart woman.  She had been good for Vaughn.

"She thinks you are in love with another woman.  Or at least thinking too much about another woman."

"I guess you really can read my mind," Vaughn tried to joke.  He spun the wrapped silverware around in a circle.  "I told her that she was wrong, but--"

"She's right," Jack said bluntly.  He really didn't want to have this conversation.  "You think you are falling in love with my daughter."

Vaughn's mouth hung open as the waiter put down his water with lemon.  "Thank you," Jack said as he placed his steaming cup of coffee in front of him.

He leaned forward.  "Get over it," he ordered him.  "I admit that at one time, I harbored the hope that you would get together with Sydney.  And I also admit that I agree with Elizabeth more than I want to when it comes to the CIA."

"You don't think I should have joined?"  Vaughn looked like he had been sucker punched.

"I didn't want you to, but I knew it was your choice."

"You said you were proud--"

"I was.  I am."  He smiled.  "Michael, I was also relieved when you decide on the career path of paper pusher instead of field agent."

"Because of mom," Vaughn admitted.  Jack's eyebrows lifted.  He had not realized why his friend had made that choice.  "I knew she would feel better about it if she knew I wasn't out there every day like Dad was."

"I never introduced you to Sydney because I didn't want her to marry a company man like me.  I wanted her to have a normal marriage with a man who could come home and tell her everything about his day," Jack said.

He had yearned to tell Laura everything.  He had told her far more than he should have; he had been a fool.  His wife worked for the enemy.  Vaughn's eyes held a hint of compassion, letting Jack know that he knew where Jack's thoughts were.

He waved down the waiter and ordered a Scotch, and the compassion turned into reproach.  Jack ignored it.  "I know that you think you are love with Sydney, and I think you probably could be, but you need to get over it.  Sydney and I both need you to be her handler, Michael.  Cool, analytical.  Not an emotional basket case.

"Besides," he admitted.  "She's not ready for that, yet.  She still cries in the middle of the night for Danny."

"I know," Vaughn replied.

***

_I shouldn't be here_, Vaughn thought as he looked at the hurt woman in front of him.

"I know I shouldn't have called you," Sydney said.  "Especially after complaining so much about Lambert setting up a meet just to talk.  Dad would have a fit."

Jack would cut him to shreds if he knew that Vaughn was meeting Sydney to talk about her feelings.  Not even feelings about a mission.  Feelings about the fact that her mother had cancelled dinner plans.

"I just had so many questions.  I wanted--I wanted--" Sydney sighed and ran a shaking hand through her hair.  "All my life, I could count on Mom and Dad.  They were my bedrock.  They were always the same.  Only now, I feel like they're both strangers.  Neither one of them will talk about their work.  Dad won't answer any questions about what he does, and Mom won't tell me anything about SD-6."

She looked at him, and he felt his heart clench.  _Remember Alice_, a voice inside his head screamed.  The pounding of his heart almost drowned it out.  He had talked to Alice earlier, explained that he had been promoted and put on some important cases.  She had accepted his explanation, not even complaining when he slipped from her bed for an unplanned meeting.

He had to stop yearning for what he couldn't have.  Jack was right.  He needed to be distant, but he wasn't sure he could be.  He didn't know how to handle Sydney Bristow without making it personal.

"Maybe your Mom will tell you later."

Sydney shook her head.  "Mom didn't have to work tonight, Vaughn."  She sniffed.  "She just didn't want to answer my questions."

She started crying harder.  "You want to hear something really crazy?  I want to fix my parents' marriage.  I feel like this little girl who doesn't have a clue what's happening, but she knows something is wrong.  I want to make it better.  I want to find out something about my mother that will make it all better.  But what could she say that would make it all better?  There's nothing she could say."

Her pager beeped.  Vaughn watched in amazement as it flew through the air, arching gracefully over the water before plummeting to its demise.  "You just threw your beeper into the ocean."

Sydney looked almost as surprised as him.  "I know," she laughed through her tears.

He told himself to leave it there.  He couldn't.  He wanted her to know how much he admired her.  "Okay, listen to me.  There's something that you need to know.  When you first walked into my office with that stupid Bozo hair, I thought you were crazy.  I mean, I actually thought you might have been a crazy person."

And he had resented the assignment.  Junior Agents always got to talk to the nuts who knew that their next door neighbor was a spy for the flavor-of-the month country. It wasn't until she told him her name that he recognized her, and even then he thought about poor Jack having to handle a crazy daughter.

"But I watched you, and I read your statement, and I've seen--I've seen how you think.  I've seen how you work.  I've seen who you are."

And it awed him.  He had been around this world of espionage all of his life.  He had watched her father, his mentor, with the same awe.

He thought about something his father had written in his journals about the job, and he shared it with her.  "In this job, you see darkness.  You see the worst in people and though the jobs are different and the missions change, and the enemies have a thousand names, the one crucial thing, the one real responsibility you have is to not let your rage, and your resentment, and your disgust, darken you.  When you're at your absolute lowest, at your most depressed, just remember that you can always, you know.  You got my number."

He wanted to wince.  Jack would kill him for making that offer.  He had meant to tell her that her father would always be there for her; instead, he had told her to call him.

When she took his hand and squeezed, he knew he was in trouble.  He didn't care.  He squeezed back.

***

Francie was going through the newspaper when Sydney got home that night.  "Hi," she said.  "Just looking for an apartment."

Sydney's heart sank.  "Things didn't go well with Charlie tonight."

"He told me I should trust him," Francie said as she used a Sharpie to circle something.  "That was all he wanted to tell me."

Sydney winced as the marker squealed its way around another ad.  "I'm sorry, sweetie."

Tears pricked at Francie's eyes--Sydney could see the light reflecting off of them--but her friend did not let them fall.  "I am, too.  I just need to move on.  That's why I'm looking."

"You know, I haven't even started," Sydney told her as she sat down next to her at the bar.  "We should thinking about renting a place together."

"That would be fun," Francie said with a small smile.  Sydney was thankful to see it.

"I think so," she replied as she bent over to see the paper better.  "Have you found anything good yet?"

"Are either one of you free at about four o'clock tomorrow?"

Sydney turned to see her mom leaning against the entranceway.  "I am," she replied before she could think.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bristow, but I've got to feed 200 hungry doctors tomorrow night," was Francie's reply.

"I'm sorry about missing dinner, Sydney.  You know how work is," Laura said as she walked up and hugged her.

Sydney hugged her back and wished she could be the mother she had been before.  Normal and fun and--

"Yeah, how does Mr. Bristow like you working all those extra hours on the new job?" Francie asked as Laura went to get a soda from the fridge.

"Jack's been working so much himself lately," Laura answered.  "He hasn't noticed.  I'm hoping by the time Jack's work slows down again, I'll have caught up and be working 'banker's hours'."

Francie laughed and Sydney tried to smile.  "Well, I know Sydney has never worked 'banker's hours'!"

"No," Sydney agreed as she pushed her hair behind her ear.

"But I'm further up on the ladder.  It should help me get more normal hours," Laura replied.

"But you have more responsibility than me," Sydney pointed out.

Laura stared at her for a minute.  "True," she answered.  She took a sip of water and then nodded.  "True."

Smiling, she walked back towards them.  "Anyway, I have this apartment that I want to show you tomorrow."

"An apartment?"  Sydney's eyebrows crunched together.

Laura told her as she held up her hand.  "I know you may not like it, and that's fine.  I just saw it one day and thought it would be perfect for you.  The girl only moved in the place in October, but her mother got sick, and she's moving back East to look after her."

Laura reached out and stroked her cheek.  "I knew you wouldn't stay home with us for long.  I've loved having you here, but I know that you are your own woman now."  She sighed.  "You always were independent, even as a baby."

***

"Yes, I am upset," her father snapped as he stared at her.  He leaned closer to her as the wind flew around them at the observatory.  "Today, I find out that my daughter was driving an ambulance as her partner pulled out the equivalent of 300 pounds of TNT from Dhiren Patel's chest.  I also find out that her broken arm from two years ago was not the result of skiing accident like she told me, but rather the result of a fight with a bodyguard."

Sydney looked down at her arm.  There was no scar, no hint of crookedness, to mark the one-time break.  She wished there were.  "I can't regret that broken arm, Dad," she told him.  "I wouldn't have met Danny if that man hadn't broken my arm."

Jack knew the story.  "You kept missing your doctor's appointment to get it removed."

Sighing, Sydney smiled.  "Between work and school, trying to find the time to get across town was impossible."

"I didn't understand why you had chosen a doctor so far from home anyway," he muttered.  "Now I know."

"I was supposed to see an SD-6 doctor, and he was the closest."  She admitted what he already knew.  "Sloane wasn't happy when I went to the University hospital instead to have it removed.  He never did like me dating Danny, either; he thought that, as a doctor, he would notice too much."  It had been hard to explain her bruises, to hide them away from Danny's observant eyes.

He wrapped his arm around her.  "Danny was a wonderful man."

"Yeah, he was," she mumbled through tears.

He kissed the top of her head.  "I'm going to miss you living at home.  I wish I had told Laura 'no' when she asked about you renting that apartment and moving out again."

She smiled.  Her mother had been right; it was perfect for her.  Francie was thrilled with their new place.  Everything was good.  Except--"I'm going to miss you, too, Daddy."


	12. Chapter 12

"Pulled a bomb out of Dhiren Patel," Vaughn said in amazement.  Maybe he should have been a field agent.  That life certainly sounded more interesting.  And dangerous.

"The very one," Sydney said with a grin.  Vaughn understood; as much as she might hate the lies and the deceit, she still loved the excitement of the job, too.  Still loved doing it well.

"Damn," Vaughn muttered.  He had said the same thing when he read her note about what had occurred.

"Yeah," Sydney agreed, appearing to understand him completely.

_Remember __Alice_.  _Remember your promise to Jack to help take care of her._  "Any luck with the Alliance member?" he asked, trying to remember to be professional.  It had been her countermission, after all.  She hadn't mentioned it at all at her dead drop.

Sydney looked at him with surprise and confusion.  "The what?"

"You were supposed to I.D. the minister that SD-6's been trying to protect."

"Thanks.  I remember," Sydney snapped.  "No, I didn't get it."

"Sydney, if we are going to take down SD-6--"

"Stop.  No."

Suddenly, the identity of that minister became very important to him.  "Look, I'm just saying that identifying--"

"Look, I was busy trying to keep one of the most important humanitarians on the planet--"

"--all of the Alliance members is kind of critical--"

"--from blowing up," she continued to speak over of him.

"Fine!" he snapped back with more frustration in his voice than there should have been.

They stared at each other.  "Anyway, I have a paper to finish," she told him as she got up and walked towards the door.

He thought about the file folder in his briefcase, the thought of which had been poking at him ever since he had made the copy.  He knew he shouldn't do it.  Knew it well.  What he was about to do went against every regulation, against everything that Jack had taught him about the business.  "Hey."

He was almost hoping that she was angry enough to walk on out the door.  She wasn't; she stopped and turned to look at him.

"I have something for you."  The words almost stuck in his throat.  He got out the thick file folder and stared at it for a moment.  Then, he walked over to her and handed it to her.  "I know you have a lot of questions about Jack.  I don't know if you even want this, but I copied his file.  Which wasn't easy in the current climate."

He knew he was about to betray Jack's trust even more, but he had been thinking about her words every day since the dock.  She had a right to know; he would want to know in her position.  "Jack's being investigated right now."

"What?"

He looked down at the floor.  "With a wife and daughter working for the enemy, his loyalty is questionable at best."

Sydney shook her head and stared down at the folder.  "Not my dad."

"I know, Sydney.  You don't have to defend him to me."

"Thank you," she said, turning and taking the folder with her.  Now, Vaughn could only hope that for once Jack wouldn't know about something he had done.

***

Sydney carefully turned the pages of her father's folder.  It was thick, full of papers marked "Confidential" and "Copy".  Even after knowing that he was CIA, even after seeing Vaughn's admiration for him, she had not realized how good of an agent he was.  Looking at his cases, she could not believe some of the stuff he had been involved in over the years.

She looked over at the content's listing again.  One of his cases was missing.  She again flipped through the pages on the other side.  It wasn't there.

"Sorry, I'm late."  Francie's voice made her close the folder.

"Hey.  It's after one already?"  She had been lost in the folder.  She stuffed it into her backpack.

"It's one thirty," Francie answered, and Sydney wanted to wince.  She should have been paying attention to the time.  What if Francie had walked up and seen the folder?  What questions would she be asking?

"Oh, God.  You got to be kidding."

"Okay," Francie said, not worried about the time.  She held a piece of paper in her hands.  "So, I'm in my Operations and Technology Management class, and I realize two things.  One, I prepared the wrong chapter."

"No!"

"I don't want to talk about it.  And two, you and I are going to have a Halloween party."  She waved the paper in her hand.

"We are?  Francie, we just moved in."

"I know," Francie said with a grin.  "Housewarming/Halloween Party."  She handed Sydney a piece of paper as they began walking out of the library.  "Guest list!"

Sydney was amazed at the size of the list.  "What?  Is it too big?" Francie asked.

"I think you put down everyone we've met since seventh grade.  You invited Kenny."

"So?"  Francie's shoulders stiffened. "He's a kid.  It's Halloween."

"Francie," Sydney said, knowing that her friend wouldn't want to hear what she was about to say.  "If you want to see Charlie again, you don't have to throw a massive Halloween party and invite his nephew."

"I love Kenny."

"I know you do."  Sydney looked over at her friend.  "But just admit that you're hoping, just a little, that Charlie will bring him."

She glanced over towards the hospital and then stopped.  "Is that Will?" she asked Francie.  Then, she asked herself why the sight of him on campus made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

***

Laura continued to stare at Dixon's report, unsure why it had her feeling uneasy.  Berlin had gone smoothly.  Sydney had managed to grab Schiller without any problems.

Well, with no real problems.  She had changed the extraction point in the middle of the operation because she thought someone was following her.  Dixon did not mention spotting anyone in his report, but there was no hint of suspicion in his writing.  But Sloane would have questions.  Laura knew his nature well.

However, it was not Sloane that was upsetting her.  It was herself.  She was questioning her own daughter's actions.  Why had Sydney changed the rules in the middle of the game?  Sydney usually liked to follow the plan, if at all possible.  Did the sudden change in behavior signify anything?  Could she be hiding something?  Maybe there was even a possibility that she could be working for someone else.

Laura would pull anyone else in for a few questions.  But she knew Sydney.  She was loyal.  She tried not to think about how Sydney had reacted when she found out the people she worked for was the people she had thought she had been working against.  She couldn't allow herself to think about her daughter's anger or her strange behavior recently.  She just couldn't.

***

"What are you doing out here, Mom?  Everyone else is inside bobbing for apples."

Laura turned to look at her, and Sydney was amazed again at how beautiful her mother was.  She was in a costume; she loved dressing up and pretending to be someone she wasn't.  The child in Sydney shied away from what the adult thought about that fact now.  Her father, of course, arrived in a pair of slacks and a button up shirt.

Her mother was dressed up as a fairy godmother.  She looked like an angel in the white lacy dress.  The sparkle in her hair and on her face added to the illusion of purity.  At one time, Sydney would have believed the lie.

"I've had a little too much to drink," Laura told her.  "I thought some fresh air--and some of Francie's cookies--might help."  A plate with a small pile of treats sat on the table beside her.

Moving away from the wall, Laura sat down in one of the lounge chairs and sighed.  "Francie's really upset that Charlie didn't show, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is," Sydney agreed, sitting down across from her mother.  She studied her mother, noticing little changes that had happened since Danny's death, since Sydney had learned the truth.  The lines around her eyes were more defined, making her look her age.  There were more gray hairs scattered through her black hair, but Laura was one of those people who looked more distinguished with them.

Nibbling on one of the cookies, Laura said, "I feel so sorry for her, but I know there is no way to fix a broken heart."

"Time is the only cure," Sydney said with a smile.  She remembered her mother telling her that after her first boyfriend had broken up with her.  Larry had decided that Lisa, the only girl with boobs in their class, was better girlfriend material.  "Larry was a jerk."

Laura looked confused for a minute and then she smiled.  "Oh, totally.  Knew it the moment he walked into our kitchen."

"So, why didn't you tell me?"

Laughing, her mother shook her head.  "Because children never listen to their parents.  My mother tried to warn me about my first serious boyfriend, but I didn't listen.  I thought he was incredible.  I followed him like a puppy, took his beliefs as my own."

"What happened?  What finally opened your eyes?"  Laura so seldom talked about the early years of her life.  Her parents had died in a plane crash when she was eighteen, and she had never found it easy to talk about what she had lost.

"I met your father," she answered.  "It took me a little bit, but I realized that I liked his ideas better."

Sydney sat back in surprise.  "You mean you changed one man's ideas for another?  Doesn't sound like my independent mother."

"Well, the difference between Alex and Jack was that Jack wanted to hear my thoughts, my ideas.  I didn't have to believe everything he believed."  Laura leaned over and whispered, "One of the many reasons I liked your father's ideas better."

Sydney laughed and leaned back in her chair.  "So, why are drinking so much tonight?  You hardly ever touch more than a glass of wine."

"I think your father's having an affair."  Laura looked even more surprised by what she had just said than Sydney felt.  "Damn, I have had way too much to drink tonight."

"Why would you think that Dad's having an affair?"

Laura waved her hand.  "Forget it.  It's nothing."

Leaning forward, Sydney said, "It's not nothing.  I've never seen you have a minute's doubt about Dad.  I mean, he's the most honest person I know."

Tears sparkled in her mother's eyes.  "I know.  I know that, Sydney, but lately everything has seemed so off.  Jack's not been himself, and--"

Laura looked over at her sighed.  "There was this one comment he made one night.  The night you kissed Will--"

Sydney shifted in her seat.  "Yeah, that was not a comfortable night.  Will and I talked after Dad left us."

"Good," Laura said.  "He deserves to know where he stands with you.  You shouldn't have led him on."

"I know," Sydney whispered.  The conversation had not been long, but it had been painful.  She was glad that it had happened though, that she hadn't left Will with any false sense of hope.

"Anyway," Laura said as she twirled a pumpkin cookie between her fingers.  "He said that it was easy to make mistakes when you are tired and lonely."

She looked down at her lap.  "Those words just stayed with me."

"Mom--"

"A friend of his at work was caught giving information to the enemy."  Laura stopped as if realizing she was giving too much away.  "A corporate spy," she explained in a calmer voice.  "I wondered if maybe he had done something while he was tired and lonely."

Sydney reached over and squeezed her mother's arm.  "Mom, Dad wouldn't sleep with another woman because he was tired and lonely.  He would come home to you.  Give him some time to recover from whatever is happening at work."

Laura smile was small but sincere.  "Thank you.  I needed to hear that.  And don't worry, I will give him all the time he needs."

"Maybe you could tell him the truth, too.  Sometimes it is our own conscience that gets to us," Sydney said, silently urging her mother to do the right thing, to come clean.  She could help them take down SD-6.

She would be a great help.  Current speculation at the CIA had her being an agent with SD-6 for ten years.  That was when she had resigned from UCLA and started working for the Foundation for the Improvement of Public Education.  She had Sloane's ear and his confidence.

"I can't," Laura whispered.  "I can't take that chance."

"Chance?"

Laura stared at her.  She bit her lip, and then said, "You know what they did to Danny."

The cut was deep, and Sydney knew her mother had only made it to push her away, to change the subject.  It wasn't her real concern.  "That's cruel."

"But true," she said.

Sydney snapped, "Is it?  Or is it the fact that my honest father might have a hard time forgiving the lies?"

Laura released a shaky breath.  "You start to lie to hide the truth, but then the lies become more real than the truth, and you don't want to face the truth anymore."

A sneaking suspicion that the CIA was wrong started to form in Sydney's mind.  "How long have you worked for them?"

"Sydney--"

"How long?"  Her voice was sharp in her own ears.

"1982," her mother finally answered.  "I started working with Sloane in 1982."

"Twenty years?"  Sydney felt the world spin below her.  The lies had been happening since she was a little girl.

Tears slid down Laura's cheeks.  "Yes, twenty years.  That's a long time for lying.  Nearly impossible to forgive."

"You could always--" She struggled to remember her own self-assigned job--the recruitment of Laura Bristow.  She wanted to scream at her, to demand answers to how she could betray Jack that way.

"I don't think so, Sydney."  Laura stood and picked up her empty plate.  "Now, you need to go greet your guests."  She tilted her chin towards the sliding glass door.  "I just saw Dixon walk by.  He's finally here."


	13. Chapter 13

"What's going on?" Jack demanded as soon as he arrived.

Sydney's pale face worried him even more than her phone call had.  She shifted in the seat next to him.  "You know about my last mission?  And countermission?"

He nodded.  Devlin had told him.  "Yes, I know about Schiller and the formula."  The idea of micro-encapsulated cytokines that could activate the immunity cells in the respiratory tract was the next step to germ warfare; the possibility of creating immunity in a certain group of people now existed.

"Paul Kelvin is a personal friend."  He had asked for him.  They had both saved each other's ass over the years.  Paul could be depended on to watch his partner's back.

Sydney's smile was strained.  "He spoke highly of you, too."

"Sydney, what's going on?"  He hated waiting.  He wanted the information given to him up front.  It was one reason why the investigation was being especially difficult for him.  He was a straightforward man who liked straightforward questions and answers.

"Paul's being held by Sloane.  He wants information that Paul doesn't have," she told him.

"Damn."  His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.  He forced his hands to relax.  He thought about Paul's wife, and he thought about his own responsibility in the death of his friend.  Selfishly, he wished it were someone he barely knew.  He didn't need the guilt right now, and he couldn't afford to lose many friends.

"Dad, I have the information.  I just can't get it to him right now.  Sloane's suspicious of me."  Sydney's voice cut through his guilt.  She had a plan.

"But?"  He could hear it in her voice.

"Mom could."

Jack almost shook from the anger that sprang up in him.  "Absolutely not!  You are not telling that woman that you are a double agent.  You cannot trust her!"

Sydney looked out of the car window.  He couldn't see her face, and he almost couldn't hear her when she replied, "That's not what I meant."

She looked down at her hands before glancing back at him.  Her face was carefully composed.  "I was thinking that you could."

***

Laura was picking up her keys off the little posts by the door when it opened and a worn-out version of her husband entered with a sigh.  "Don't tell me that I'm finally getting home at a semi-decent hour, and you are the one heading out to work?"

"I'm sorry," she answered as she reached up to kiss him.  "They asked if I would mind coming in for an emergency meeting, and I didn't know when you would be home--I'm sorry."

She was incredibly sorry.  Not that she had been really offered a choice.  Sloane had made it an order.  He found her useful in certain situations, and a man refusing to tell what he knew was that kind of situation.  He needed her to get Schiller to tell what he knew.

Putting down his briefcase, Jack wrapped his arms around her and held her close.  His cologne tickled her nose, and the cotton of his jacket caressed her cheek.  The strength in his arms held her up, made her feel stronger.  It had been too long since she had been here.

She forced herself to pull away from him, and then she froze in place when she saw his face.  "What's wrong?"

He shook his head and walked over to the edge of the sink.  He rested his hands there and leaned forward.  His head was bowed with a weight she couldn't physically see.  She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him, trying to give him strength.  He rested her forehead on his back.  "What's wrong?" she repeated.  Sloane could rot in hell.  Jack needed her.

He tensed for a moment and then turned in her arms.  He hugged her close.  "I'm about to lose a close friend tonight," he mumbled into her hair.

She pulled away so she could look into his eyes.  "What do you mean?  Who?"

"I don't think you've ever met him," he told her, his eyes vacant, his thoughts obviously somewhere else.  "Paul Kelvin."

Swallowing the gasp in her throat, she said instead, "The man who saved you in Columbia."

He looked down at her, his eyes sharp and focused.  "I told you about Columbia?"

He hadn't.  He never told her about any of the dangers he faced, and what happened in that jungle had been a close call--one that still gave her nightmares occasionally.  Sloane had especially enjoyed telling her about Jack's run in with K-Directorate there.  "Only that you had run into a tight spot, and that he had saved your skin."

Jack's eyebrows lowered, and he nodded.  But she could see that he was trying to remember telling her.  "Yeah, he did, and now I can't return the favor."

"What's happened?" she asked again as Jack walked towards the wet bar.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey before he answered. "Paul's pretending to be someone he's not.  A scientist.  A group of people, an enemy, has him and thinks he knows information that he doesn't.  A location."

Laura looked down at her black high heels to keep him from seeing her face.  She lifted up a foot and looked at one of the heels like she had spotted a smudge on it.  Paul Kelvin was pretending to be Schiller; she knew it.  That's why he hadn't talked, even though Sloane was willing to give him the money agreed on before hand.  Someone had been following Sydney after all.

Rubbing at her heel, she looked up, only to find that Jack was staring into his glass.  "And we can't tell him anything.  A few words is all we need to tell him.  Or even one.  Badenweiler."

"Near the Black Forest," she whispered before she thought.

"You were always excellent in geography," Jack said with a feeble grin.

"I'll call the office and tell them that I can't make it."  She would sneak out tonight while Jack was asleep; she had done it before.

Setting down his glass, Jack walked over to her.  He put his hands on her shoulders.  "No, no, go to your meeting.  I'm just going to be staring at the phone waiting for a call I don't want to answer."

Laura swallowed as tears welled in her eyes.  "Okay."  She wanted to tell him that she would make sure he didn't get that phone call, that she would repay her debt.  But she couldn't.  Instead, she kissed him and walked out the door.

***

Vaughn could smell the alcohol on Jack's breath.  He wanted to mention it, but he didn't know what to say.  "Jack--"

The door to the limo opened and a pale, shaken Paul Kelvin fell into the back seat.  The agents who had escorted him strolled away from the car.  "Hey, I earned some nice transportation this time, huh?"  His grin was strained.

"Devlin thought that you had earned it," Jack replied as the driver pressed the gas pedal.  Vaughn knew that Jack had insisted on it.

"Better than the rusted out Pinto they sent for me last time," Paul joked.  "But, really, I'd just like some pain killers and a cast.  Maybe some sleep."

Vaughn noticed then that he was holding his arm strangely.  "What happened to it?"

"They broke it to get me to tell them about Badenweiler."

Flinching, Vaughn wondered how Paul had known.  Before he could ask him, Jack answered.  "Sydney told me about her conversation with Schiller.  I told Laura that I was worried about a friend--Paul Kelvin--who was pretending to be someone he wasn't.  That we couldn't get the location of a place he needed to know--Badenweiler--to him."  Jack looked at both of his companions.  "Sydney had an idea that if her mother knew, she might do something to save Paul."

"She was right," Paul told him through gritted teeth.  They had just hit a pothole.

"I know," Jack replied.  He didn't sound happy about it.  Pointing towards Paul's collar, he said, "I recognized the shade of lipstick."

As Vaughn realized that it was possible for him to actually hate Laura Bristow more than he already did, he watched Paul squirm.  "She walked in wearing this latex dress and a blonde wig.  I've seen pictures of her for years, but I wouldn't have known it was her if--"

"You hadn't already been ordered to pay attention for her," Jack finished.  "Report any information that you found on her."

Licking his lips, Paul nodded.  "She came in and, uh, started trying to a, uh, seduce me for the information.  When she started to, uh, kiss my neck, she whispered 'Badenweiler' in my ear.  Then, she told me that she was my friend, and that I needed to resist more to make it seem believable."  Paul stared over at Jack.  "I didn't know what to think, so I kept my mouth shut."

He lifted up his arm.   "Then, suddenly she became the bad cop.  She slapped me and told me that I should have agreed to do it the easy way.  Before I even knew what was happening, I could hear my wrist breaking and my own voice screaming 'Badenweiler'."

The noise of the tires gliding over the asphalt and the hum of the engine were the only sounds in the limo for several minutes.  Vaughn wanted to say something, but he didn't have a clue as to what he should say.  He looked over at Paul and saw the same conflict on the older man's face.  Jack looked straight ahead.

His friend finally broke the strained silence.  "She tortured you."  Jack's voice was flat.  Emotionless.  He stared over at Paul's arm.  "We live in a strange world.  I'm sitting here wishing that you had told me that my wife fucked you for the information."

The bleakness in Jack's eyes made Vaughn want to shiver.  "Would you help Paul out of the car, Michael?"

Vaughn looked up and realized they were sitting in front of a CIA-sponsored hospital.  "Of course," he said as he grabbed for the door handle.  He wanted to get out of this car and never get back in it again.

***

His daughter was staring at the headstone like it could give her answers.  He stood behind her, blocking the heavy winds that had been making her hair fly about her face.  "I just heard about Badenweiler.  I'm sorry."

She reached out and began tracing Danny's name.  "I should have known.  I should have stopped it."

He squatted down behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.  "There was no way for you to know."

He thought about the first time he had seen someone from the Agency die.  He had been young then, just eighteen.  If he let himself think about it, he could still hear the sound of the helicopters blades turning, could feel the force of the air they moved.  One minute the man had been welcoming him to hell on earth, telling him where he needed to go, and the next the man's lifeless body was slumping into him.  There had been no time to react to the sight; bullets had filled the air from both sides.  But the look on the man's face as the bullet exited his skull was something Jack had never forgotten.

Just as Sydney would never forget Badenweiler.

"I wanted to tell Dixon."

"Vaughn told me."

"I hate lying to him.  I hate the fact that he thinks he's working for the good guys when he's not."  Sydney's hand trailed through the grass.  "I hate it."

Jack squeezed her shoulders harder.  "I know.  Sydney, I'm so sorry."

She turned around and hugged him.  "It's not your fault.  I've made my choices, and now I have to learn to live with them."


	14. Chapter 14

Vaughn walked up with a container of golf balls.  He tried to ignore the smile that threatened to break out on his face just from watching Sydney.  He reminded himself to be professional, to be the handler that Jack needed him to be.  He sat a small box beside her, and he wished he could give her a gift for real.

"What's this?" she asked after she slid it open.

"A bug."

She looked like the teacher she was planning to be.  "What are you, twelve-years old?"

He felt the conflicting urges to shake and to kiss her.  "No, a _bug_.  We didn't know about Smythe."

"After we get the code machine, they'll scan for listening devices."

"Technology on this thing is totally passive.  The guys at Langley actually cribbed the design from a Russian device they pulled from the American embassy.  The thing only works when we hit it with a microwave beam off of an orbital satellite.  Then it acts like a microphone.  It's completely undetectable."

Sydney understood.  "And if they find it, they'll just think it's a bug."

His ball landed just where he had aimed.  "Exactly."

"What about the code machine?"

"Chances are we won't have time to pull a switch, so deliver it to SD-6.  When they break the code, they'll inform their affiliate offices through the computer network.  Thanks to you, we're still downloading from their mainframe."

"How much have you gotten so far?"

He grunted as he hit another ball.  "Almost two percent."

"In all this time, that's all you got?"  

He understood her frustration, but he also understood the need for patience.  "If we take too much, too quickly, they'll notice the leak.  But we're patient.  We can get all their internal files and then we can do some real damage."

Sydney flashed a grin towards him.  "Good."

They both hit balls in silence for a few minutes.  Finally, he asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."  Her smile was strained.  "Why do you ask?"

Vaughn cleared his throat and shrugged.  "You look down."

She smacked the ball hard.  He thought he saw the sheen of tears sparkle in her eyes, but he couldn't be sure.  "I keep thinking about those agents in Badenweiler, and their families.  That could have been my dad.  It could have been my mother."

Vaughn felt like a hand was squeezing his heart.  An old pain revived, coursing its way through his body.  He struggled to find something comforting to say to her.  He knew how much danger Jack had found himself in over the years.  "I doubt Laura's gotten into that much trouble in the last ten years."

She started at his words.  "I've only worked for SD-6 for seven years; I've gotten into plenty."

He got the feeling that wasn't the first thing she had thought when he mentioned her mother.  An uneasy feeling crawled up his spine.  "You advanced quickly.  You said that yourself.  And Laura seems to be more involved in the planning than the execution of operations."

Sydney stared down at her ball.  Shaking her head, she seemed to gather her thoughts before she swung her driver.  "I keep thinking that it could have been me.  I can't even imagine."

Vaughn could.  Old memories and feelings were almost overwhelming him.  "There's a book back at Langley.  They keep it locked up under glass, and behind it is a marble wall with stars carved in it."  He asked himself why he was telling her this, but he couldn't stop himself from sharing it.

"It's a memorial to the agents the company lost in action.  Families are never told how they died or even where."  He had asked his mother over and over again how his daddy had died; he was sure he had almost driven her mad with a question she had no answer to herself.

"Only that they won't be coming home."  _Michael, your father's not coming home this time.  I know he promised he would, baby.  I know.  But he's not._

"I was eight when my father became one of those stars.  At the funeral, there's a protocol the Agency representative has to follow.  What to say, whose hands to shake.  You're admonished--that is actually the word they used, 'admonished'--not to be conspicuously emotional."  He had wanted to cry, but the man from his father's work had watched him.  The man had kept his back straight, his face emotionless.  An eight-year-old Michael Vaughn did what he thought William Vaughn would have wanted him to do; he held the tears inside.  He still had never shed a tear for him, not matter how much he wanted to do so.

Sydney stared at him with that sorrow that he hated.  He understood it, but he hated it.  He would rather remember his father as he had been alive, but every person he ever told about it could only think about the dead man, not the man who had lived.  They had not known him.  "Vaughn, I'm so sorry."

"The agents that died in Badenweiler?  I've been assigned to represent the Agency at their funerals."  He swung his gold club back and forth.  The Agency was giving him the opportunity to be the man that he had both admired and hated at his own father's funeral.

***

He was going to get himself killed.  She knew it.

Scrubbing a pan, Laura thought about Will.  When her daughter had first introduced him to her family, Laura had liked the man instantly, but at the same time, she wondered if her daughter had considered the implications of having a reporter for a friend.  She hadn't been able to talk to her about it then, and now it was too late.

A reporter's job was to reveal the truth to the public; their job was to hide the truth from everyone.  Will's basic nature, that wonderful inquisitive mind of his, was going to get him killed.  And Laura was beginning to doubt that she could stop it from happening.

She had sent out a red herring.  When she discovered that Will had learned the name of Danny's travel companion, she had decided to let him meet Kate Jones.  Not the real one, of course.  She had died decades before.  Not Sydney either.  That would only raise more questions than answers.

No, she had sent in a young SD-6 recruit to lie to him, to tell him that she was having an affair with Danny.  Laura had been sure that knowledge would stop him from investigating Danny's murder.  Hurting Sydney by revealing that information was something that Will would not be able to do.

She had even carefully constructed the story to make its impact worse.  Sydney had met Danny when he removed a cast from her broken arm.  A bodyguard that she had fought had broken it, but Sydney had told everyone that it had happened while skiing.  "Kate Jones" had told Will that she met Danny when he was setting her ankle.  It would have worked except--

Will had been too good of an investigator.  He had discovered through Kate Jones' social security number that Kate Jones had died in 1973.  Dear Eloise had not had enough field experience to deal with Will's questions after he revealed what he knew.

Laura could have done it, explained that she was in the witness protection program.  Told him some story and then set up the information for him to find "proving" it to be true.  But Laura sometimes felt like she had been born lying.  Eloise Kurtz was an open, honest person by nature.  SD-6 had not finished their training with her.

Maybe there was some way to still salvage it.  Maybe Eloise could call him and use the witness protection story.  They might still get him to drop the story.

If he didn't get himself killed first.

"Are the dishes that bad?"

She looked up at Jack and was surprised to notice that she was crying.  She wiped at her eyes and turned back towards the sink.  She had been leaning back against it, lost in thought.  "No, they're done actually."

She heard Jack step closer as the water drained.  "Why are you crying?"

"I'm thinking about Danny.  And Sydney."  And Will.  And all the people whose lives she'd destroyed.

Jack put his hands on her shoulders.  "When is Sydney supposed to be home from San Diego?"

She was in London actually.  At the Hobbes End Photo Gallery, stealing a coding machine from FTL.  Laura sighed at the thought.  Her daughter's life was becoming more of a lie everyday.  "I'm not sure."

"You two should go out and do one of your 'Girls' Days'.  It's been a long time since you've done that," he whispered.

"Before Danny died," she realized.  Why had Sydney told him?  She should have known better.

Moving his hands up and down her arms, he said, "I know."

She turned to look at him.  "Can we go out to eat?  Just you and me?  It's been a long time since we've done that."

Jack looked over at his briefcase, and her heart sank.  He nodded.  "Yeah, we can do that.  Just let me call Devlin and tell him that I'll be back in a lot latter tonight."

She smiled and kissed him.  "Thank you.  I'll go repair my face while you make your phone call."

Walking down the hallway to her room, she made two promises to herself.  One was that tonight would be about her and her husband.  No part of her brain was going to be used to plan operations for SD-6.

The second one was that she would save Will, no matter what the cost to herself.

***

People milled about them as they drank their coffee.  Laura looked at the man sitting across from her, and she forced herself to smile.  "Why did you want to meet for coffee?"

Sloane looked around at the people and then focused on her.  He reminded her again of a beautiful cobra.  Dangerous, sleek, but somehow it was impossible not to stare, to be mesmerized.  "I wanted to tell you that Sydney and Fisher missed their scheduled contact."

Laura's fingers gripped the handle of her coffee mug even tighter.  She forced herself to take a sip, to not show any emotion.  That was why he had invited her out to tell her the news.  He was granting her permission to be a concerned mother instead of a senior agent.  But she wouldn't let him see her pain.  She didn't dare.

He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers.  "What are you thinking, Laura?"

She stayed in agent mode.  She wouldn't tell him her fears; he would use them against her when he needed to do so.  "I'm thinking that the worse case scenario may be true.  They may not be alone.  Someone else is in there with them posing as a patient or a doctor."

He smiled and pulled his hand away.  He understood what she was doing; she could see it in his eyes.  He hated her for it, too.  Hated that she would hide any of herself away from him.  He liked being in control of people, but he was obsessed about being in control of her, Jack Bristow's wife.  "Sydney's a smart woman, Laura.  We've seen her through worse than this."

She bit back the scream in her throat.  _He _was the reason Sydney was in this game; he had not been satisfied with owning Jack's wife.  He wanted to control Jack's daughter, too.  She should have realized that danger a long time ago, should have warned Sydney.  Instead, she had idiotically assumed that she was enough.  Until the day he told her that Sydney was a part of the family.  Then, there had been nothing that she could do.

"You don't know that," Laura said and hated hearing the fear that trembled those words.

"No, I don't.  Though, I believe in her, Laura.  Believe in her as if she was my own daughter."

Somehow she managed to keep herself from shuddering at his words, from revealing anything to him.  "That's nice to hear."  She looked down at her watch and noted the time.  "When's her next scheduled contact?"

"Ten hours.  Then we'll know how hot the water is," he told her.  

She stood up and reached for her purse.  "Thank you for letting me know, Arvin.  I'll see you in ten hours."  She walked away, feeling his eyes watching her.


	15. Chapter 15

"Ah, Mister Bristow, Mister Vaughn, your _usual _table is waiting for you, sirs," the _maitre d'_ told them as soon as they entered the restaurant.

Vaughn smiled at him as Jack offered their thanks.  They had been coming to this restaurant for over a decade.  In fact, if he was remembering right, Jack first brought him here the week before his high school graduations.

They followed the man to a private room in the back.  Jack liked the privacy of it.  They could talk about important topics without being interrupted or distracted.  "It's been a long time, Mister Bristow," their waitress greeted them.

Jack nodded his agreement.  "I know.  I can't remember the last time I actually took the time for lunch."

"Busy at work?"

"Really busy," he answered before telling her his order.  It was a mere formality; he made the same selection every time.  Vaughn liked a little more variety; he rotated between three different specialties.

After watching her walk away, Vaughn played with his napkin.  "What's wrong?" Jack asked him.

Taking in a deep breath, Vaughn told him.  "We have a problem."

"Sydney?"  Jack's face was expressionless, but Vaughn could hear the fear in his voice.

"We believe that--" Vaughn sighed.  "We think that K-Directorate has an agent in the hospital."

"Damn," Jack muttered as he picked up his water glass.  "I talked to Laura earlier on the phone.  She sounded--concerned about something."

Leaning forward, Vaughn told him, "We have an extraction team waiting on the ready line out of Serbia.  I want to pull Sydney out of there."

Jack stared at the dew on his glass for several heartbeats.  "No," he finally said.

"Excuse me?"

He looked up at Vaughn and repeated himself.  "No."

"Jack, it's my job--"

"To protect Sydney.  I know, Michael."  Jack picked up his napkin and laid it across his lap.  The server arrived a few seconds later with their salads.  Vaughn could feel the tension humming in the air as the man cracked fresh ground pepper over the crisp lettuce.

Picking up his fork, Vaughn asked, "Then why aren't you letting me do my job?"

Jack took another sip of water.  "I'm her father, Michael; it's my job, too.  To protect her, _and_ to let her do what she wants now that she is an adult."

"I don't understand, Jack."

Picking up a breadstick, his mentor explained, "You are young and eager and smart, Michael.  But you haven't lived long enough to be wise."

"Wise?  Jack, how is not saving Sydney's life wise?"  Michael forced his fingers to relax on the fork.  He stabbed a tomato and then felt bad about taking his anger out on an innocent fruit.  Then, he felt stupid for worrying about the non-existent feelings of vegetation.

Sitting down his fork, Jack pushed the plate out of his way.  He leaned on his elbows.  "Michael, even with the minimal extraction team, we can't guarantee containment.  Think about what happened in Cairo last month."  Vaughn flinched at the reminder.  He had seen photos of that aftermath.  "And if Arvin Sloane finds out, Sydney's dead anyway."

"Then, we will retire her early."

Jack sighed.  "Michael, if I had my way, Sydney would be sitting on a beach in Florida, reading a book, and not having a damn thing to do with any of this.  She told me--" Jack closed his eyes and then opened them again.  "She told me that she would rather be dead than in witness protection, and I have to believe that she was telling me the truth."

Michael pushed his own plate out of the way.  "I don't understand how you can just accept this."

"Accept it?"  Jack shook his head.  Crossing his arms, he leaned back in the chair.  "Do you remember how accepting Elizabeth was of your career choice?"

"Mom was very un-accepting."  He had never seen his mother act like she had that day.  She had screamed at him.  Actually screamed.  "You came over and talked to her."

"She didn't want to listen at first.  She said she hated the danger, despised it.  I told her that you were going do it anyway.  There wasn't anything she could say to change your mind."  Jack's eyes bore into his.  "There was nothing I could say to change your mind."

"Jack--"

Leaning forward, Jack said, "I'm proud of my work, Michael, but no, I didn't want you to follow in your father's footsteps.  Just as I never wanted Sydney to follow in mine."

"But we did."

Jack nodded and stared off at the wall.  He looked back at him and gave a tired smile.  "And I have to accept that you both are adults who make your choices in life.  All I can do is give advice.  Don't send the team, Michael.  If K-Directorate has someone in there, we just have to trust Sydney to handle it."

Their waitress brought their food out.  Vaughn tried to come up with an argument for extraction, but he couldn't overcome Jack's logic.  He didn't know Sydney that well, but if she was anything like her father, she wouldn't thank him for risking her cover to save her life.

"Oh, by the way," Jack said as he picked up the saltshaker.  "Would you mind telling me why you pulled my file folder last week?"

***

"Is something wrong?"

He really was good at observing.  "Can I tell you something off the record?"

Vaughn's eyebrows rose and his forehead crinkled.  "Sure."

"Shepard's alive."

"Excuse me?"  He shook his head as if he was trying to clear his ears.  She had just finished telling him--officially--that Shepard had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.

"I helped him fake his death.  Get away from SD-6."  Sydney sank down on one of the boxes.  "I just didn't want to lie to you about it."

"Why wouldn't you want the CIA to know this?"  She could hear his confusion.

Sydney stared at him for a minute.  "The CIA might try to find him, might try to find out what he knows."  She sighed and kicked her feet.  "But the person I'm really hiding it from is my dad."

Vaughn sat down across from her.  "Why wouldn't you want Jack to know?"

She felt the tears start to fall, but she didn't bother to wipe them away.  "I don't want him to know about Shepard."

"Why?"  Vaughn ran his hand through his hair.  "He doesn't even know the man, Sydney.  He doesn't have a personal vendetta against him."

"He killed Danny."

Vaughn felt his forehead gather.  "What?"

She looked up at him as she crossed her arms.  "He killed Danny.  He recognized me from a photo that Danny kept in the apartment.  He took it on my birthday.  Me, the cake, and the banner.  He said all of his other pictures of me had someone else in them.  Mom, Dad, friends, him.  He wanted one of just me."

"I'm so sorry," Vaughn said as his beeper went off.

***

The phone rang.  Vaughn smiled at his mother and Alice as he handed his girlfriend the dishtowel.  He was almost done drying anyway.  He smiled at his mother; they both knew who was calling.  "Got to get it."

"Vaughn."

"Michael," Jack's strong voice crackled through the earpiece.

Smiling, Vaughn sank down on the bed that had been his as a child.  His mother had put him and Alice together in this room for the weekend.  "I thought it would be you."

"How's Elizabeth doing?"  Jack always asked about his mother, and Vaughn knew Elizabeth would ask about Jack as soon as he returned to the dinning room.

In that familiar question, Vaughn heard an unfamiliar distance.  Ever since he had asked about the Calder file at lunch, Jack had acted strangely.  In anyone else, Vaughn would have called it guilt.

"Wonderful.  She fixed too much again," he answered, lying back onto the bed.

"She probably thinks you're too thin," Jack said, his voice finally relaxing some.  Vaughn could hear the laughter in the background.

He smiled.  "She did say something about me needing some more meat on my bones.  Sounds like you have a houseful this year."

"Actually, no.  Sydney insisted on having it at her place this time."  Vaughn grinned when he heard the indulgent note in Jack's voice.

"I still bet it is a houseful."  They always had some of Sydney's friends over for the holidays.  During Sydney's undergraduate years, there had been someone staying all the time because they couldn't get home or their parents were away.

"There is Francie, of course.  And her fiancé Charlie."

"Fiancé?"

"Yes, he proposed to her at dinner."

Vaughn heard something in his friend's voice.  "You aren't thrilled with it."

"There's something about Charlie that doesn't sit right with me," Jack admitted.  "However, Francie's dad, a man who has a good sense of character, calls him 'one of the good ones'."

At one time, Jack would have shared his doubts with Francie, but Vaughn was betting that Jack doubted his own instincts right now.  Especially when faced with a conflicting view from a man whose opinions he admired.  "Want me to check him out?"

Jack chuckled.  "I doubt the agency would be thrilled to know that you are offering to investigate an innocent civilian to see if he's a dishonest man."

"You think he's a player?"  If Jack thought it, Vaughn had no trouble believing it.  He still trusted his friend's instincts.  Laura and Sydney were his only blind spots.  Those blind spots had just been larger and more dangerous than Jack had suspected.

"Yes, I do," Jack answered.  Vaughn heard someone--a man--in the background say something about getting started.  "I'll be right there, Will."

"About to start the annual game of Charades?" Vaughn asked.  When Jack had first mentioned the tradition, Vaughn had struggled to picture his friend playing a game.  Any game.  Sports, yes.  Parlor games, no.  But then, he had never seen the same Jack that Sydney had; he had been jealous of that when he had been younger.

"Yeah, we are.  I just called to say 'Happy Thanksgiving,' Michael."

"Thank you.  I hope you have a good one, too, Jack."  Now that he had learned the truth about Laura and Sydney, this year had to be especially difficult for his friend.

"My daughter's home safe, Michael.  I have a lot to be thankful for," Jack answered.  Vaughn heard the phone disconnect.  He sat starring at his cell phone and thinking about the Bristow family until he heard Alice calling for him.

***

Sydney and Laura were finishing up the dishes.  Everyone else was sitting in the living room, lost in a conversation that continued to change subjects like the currents.  "What are you thinking?" Sydney finally asked her.

Laura looked over at her daughter and realized that she hadn't hid her thoughts well.  She used to be able to, but now that Sydney knew the truth, she found herself relaxing around her.  Which was dangerous.  Because Sydney didn't know the entire truth and could never know the entire truth.

She began wiping down the counters.  "I've been thinking about something I think you should know, but I didn't know how to tell you."

"What is it?" Sydney asked.  Laura could hear the determination in her voice.  Her daughter wanted to know, no matter what the pain might be.

"Shepard killed Danny," she whispered.

Angry tears sparkled in Sydney's eyes.  "I know."

"You know?  How?"

Sydney put up the last plate and sighed.  "He recognized me from my picture."

"I'm sorry."

Sydney looked at her, tried to see her soul.  Laura could feel it.  "So am I."


	16. Chapter 16

"Mom's asleep," Sydney sighed as she sank down next to her father.  He had been sitting out on the terrace ever since Will and Jenny had left.  "I think she was more tired than she realized."

Jack nodded.  "We were worried about you.  She was on the phone constantly, trying to find out about you.  Then, she had to pretend that nothing was wrong when I was there.  It had to wear her out."

He sounded like he was giving a book report instead of talking about his wife.  He felt numb inside, even though he had told Vaughn that he had a lot to be thankful for.  And he had been thankful for Sydney's safe return.  She had not told him about her time in the mental hospital, but Jack knew it could not have been pleasant.

He could see the tiredness start to settle on her shoulders.  Like her mother, she had been running on sheer adrenaline for the last few hours.  He should wait until later, but now felt like the right time.

He walked inside and got his coat.  He spotted his lying asleep on the couch, a blanket covering her.  He watched her breath and wondered when everything had gone wrong between them.  Shaking it off, he went back outside and walked over to Sydney.  He pulled an envelope out of the pocket and handed it to her.  She looked up at him, her eyelids heavy, and her eyebrows drawn up in confusion.  "What's this?"

"The report on Case 332L," he told her as he sat back down beside her.  He put his feet out in front of him.  He heard the ripping of paper as she tore into it.  She opened the package, and he knew at what she was looking.  He had arranged the pages in a specific order before stuffing them into the envelope.

"That's a picture of Bentley Calder.  He was an FBI Agent.  And A traitor," he told her.

"Why are you giving me this?" she asked.

He smiled and it felt like his face was cracking.  She sounded like him, demanding answers, never being satisfied with just being told the official story.  "Vaughn told me that you had mentioned it to him, and that you had asked him if he knew anything."

"He didn't," she sighed.

Jack shifted in the lounge chair.  "He's the reason the file's missing."

"You mean he lied to me?"  She sounded so shocked by the idea.  How could she be so damn naive after all that she had seen?  He realized that she sounded just like him.  He knew the score, knew the dangers of their life, but he had never for one moment ever doubted his wife, his family.  Until it all fell apart.

If it had been anyone else besides Sydney telling him that his wife was an agent for SD-6, he would not have believed him.  He would have denied any evidence they tried to show.  Sydney was the only person who he would have believed, and she had been the one to tell him the truth he didn't want to know about Laura.

"No," Jack told her.  He looked over at her.  "I asked for them to be removed in case he ever came looking at my file.  He never did, until you told him that you felt like you didn't know me anymore."

Sydney looked away from him.  She bit her lip and sighed.  "I'm sorry."

"You should be," he told her.  "And I should be angry, but I'm not."

Sydney chuckled.  "You were always too lenient as a father."

He grasped her hand in his.  "I remember you saying the exact opposite when you were a teenager."

Sydney squeezed his fingers.  "I went crazy the day I turned thirteen and stayed that way for years," she teased.

"You were a good kid, even as a teenager," he told her.  She had been wonderful.  He was blessed; even all the lies Lara had told him for the past decade, all the pain he wasn't allowing himself to feel, was worth it.  Sydney was worth it.

"I remember you saying the exact opposite when I was a teenager."

They both smiled at each other.  "Well, I was the father of teenage daughter, and I had been a teenager myself.  I knew the trouble you could get into."

"Mister Honor Student got into trouble?" Sydney gasped.  She laid her hand across her chest.  "Say isn't so."

He felt his smile fade, and Sydney looked like she wished she could grab it back.  "I joined the CIA when I was seventeen, Sydney."

"You have to be eighteen to work for the CIA," Sydney replied, and Jack grinned at the primness in her voice.

"Supposedly," he answered with a sigh.  "It was two days past my eighteenth birthday when they set me down in Viet Nam."

Sydney was silent for a moment.  "You told you weren't drafted."

"I wasn't.  I never went as a soldier, Sydney.  I was there as an agent of the CIA."  Jack could still remember the smell that had hovered in the air.  The smell and the screams.

The moonlight reflected off of Sydney's tears.  "I thought that meant--"

"I hadn't been.  I know.  I wanted you to think that," he told her.  "I don't know why; I just didn't want you to know."

Sydney looked down at the papers in her lap.  "Why didn't you want Vaughn to see these?"

An old guilt regurgitated in his mouth.  "I didn't want him to know that I once accused his father of treason."

"What?"

Jack's fist clenched.  "Doesn't that man look familiar to you, Sydney?"

She stared at the photo for several minutes.  He could see her thinking, struggling to remember.  Her memory was almost photographic, but it had been years since she had even seen the article.  He pulled it out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.

She stared at the newspaper before taking it from his hands.  She gasped when she seen the headline, but she stopped breathing when she saw the picture of Calder, the one beside a picture of him and her mother.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

Jack remembered the confusion he had felt afterwards.  It had been a difficult time for him.  He had almost gone insane in his struggle for revenge.  "Calder worked for the KGB, Sydney.  He was a plant.  No one even had a clue until I drove your mother to a meeting one night, to some faculty get together that I didn't even usually attend."

"But Mom asked you to," Sydney whispered.  She had asked for them to tell her about the accident the day she graduated from high school.

Jack nodded.  "And that son of bitch tried to kill me and damn near killed your mother instead."

He heard Sydney sniff.  He didn't feel like crying; he could still taste the desire for blood that had choked him at the time.  "When we investigated why, we discovered his secret.  Several agents had died from an unknown assailant.  He had been killing us, and we didn't have a clue who it was until an icy road took care of the assassin for us."

When Sydney looked over at him with concern in her eyes, he forced himself to breathe.  "Only the dates didn't match.  He was out of town for a few of them.  We realized that he had to have had an accomplice."

Jack remembered the frantic search for that accomplice.  "Then, we found the message: sent in a magazine article.  Someone had picked it up and noticed that his copy of the magazine didn't have the same article in it.  We found the code, deciphered it, and realized that he had been ordered to kill the assassin.  That they had become a rogue agent."

Sighing, Jack stretched, trying to get his muscles to relax.  "We researched the date of the magazine, but realized that might not matter.  He apparently got some in the mail, but others were old ones dropped off at and picked up from dentists and doctors' offices.  A brilliant way of passing information."

"What happened then?"

"They started looking at everyone who had died, focusing on those in the year of the magazine.  They would have investigated me, but they realized that I was out of town every single time one of the murders had taken place.  Hell, I was out of the country when most of them took place," he told her.  He wished he had a drink, but he had been cutting back on them.  Because Vaughn had asked him to and because he knew Sydney needed him sober.

Jack stared down at his hands.  "Your mother was recovering by then.  We narrowed our suspect list quickly, and William Vaughn was at the top of it."  He sighed.  "I hounded his poor widow, and the clues kept popping, and then a much-too-old-for-his-age Michael, his fist clenched by his sides, demanded to know my intentions."

"What?"

Jack grinned at the memory.  "He thought I was ready to marry his mother.

"I looked at Elizabeth--his mother--and told her that he deserved to know the truth," he said.

"You didn't?"

Shaking his head, Jack remembered the horror in Elizabeth's eyes.  She was already reeling from the possibility that her husband may not have been the man she thought he was.  She had been terrified that he would rip away the illusions of a boy.  It had been then that he had regained control of himself, had realized that even if William Vaughn had been a villain, Elizabeth and her son were as much his victims as Laura.

"I told him that I was a CIA agent investigating his father's murder, that we weren't giving up," he said.  The relief in the room that day could be physically felt.  That teenage boy had not been ready for a replacement father, no matter how much he tried to act like an adult.  And that mother wanted her son to believe his father was a hero.

Vaughn had just turned thirteen when they met.  He had been plagued off and on by nightmares ever since his father's death four years earlier.  They had stopped after Jack told him about the investigation.  He had never told his mother that he dreamed he was letting his father down by not investigating, by not demanding answers.  The fact the CIA was still involved, still looking, had given him comfort.

Jack sighed.  "Elizabeth waited until he was gone to ask me what I was going to tell him when I found conclusive proof."

He remembered his younger self's words.  "I told her that he should be told the truth.  He was almost a man, and I thought truth was the answer."  Laura had always agreed with him when it came to telling the truth.  _There are too many lies in this world_, she had used to say.

"Yet you never told me the truth," she whispered.

He looked over at his daughter.  "No, I didn't.  I lied to you.  I lied to Michael.  He invited me to a baseball game one day when I was over there searching through some more of his father's papers.  I could tell he was desperate for an older man to look up to.  His grandfathers were dead, and he only had his mother and one grandmother.  So I started filling in for William Vaughn."

Sydney stared down at the papers in her hands.  "Did you find the proof you needed?"

Jack nodded.  "Yeah, I did.  Six months after I met Michael, I found conclusive proof that his father was innocent."  He had apologized to Elizabeth, explained to her why it had been so important to him.  She had eventually forgiven him, had understood his desire for revenge.  Then, he had gone to William Vaughn's grave and asked for forgiveness from him.  And made a promise to look out for his son.

"Who--"

"We still don't know," he admitted.  He had never found his answers.  Every night, he had sat beside his wife's hospital bed, watched her struggle to breathe in her bruised body and promised to find everyone responsible.  He had failed.

"I told Laura the day I brought her home that I didn't blame her if she wanted to hate me," he whispered.  He was talking more to himself than Sydney.

Looking up, he spotted the horror on Sydney's face.  She had just realized something that she didn't want to deal with.  "Sydney--"

"Dad, don't ask me!"  She stood up and the papers crumbled in her hand.

He didn't stand; he gave her the space she needed.  "You know I will."

She stared down at her hands.  He could see the tension in her shoulders.  The muscles were knotted beneath her shirt.  "Mom told me on Halloween when she started working for SD-6."

Jack sat up straight.  "No one informed me of that."

"I didn't tell them," she whispered.

"Sydney--"

"I couldn't."  She turned to look at him.  Tears stayed in her eyes and voice.  "I just couldn't."

Jack sighed and leaned back.  "I should reprimand you, but I don't have the energy."

"You wouldn't have told them either," she realized.

He shrugged.  "You're right.  I don't know; I might have."

The sounds of the night surrounded them.  Finally, Sydney told him what was on her mind.  "1982."

Jack's eyes closed.  "Right after the accident."  He looked at her.  They were both hoping that maybe they could understand her decision, accept the anger that drove her.  They both knew they couldn't forgive twenty years of lies.

"Take the file and read it, Sydney.  You need to go to bed.  It's late, and you've went through hell the last few days," he told her.

"Dad--"

"Go to bed," he told her.  "I'm fine."

Sydney stared at him for a few minutes.  Finally, she nodded and went back inside.  Jack stared up at the sky for the remainder of the night.  He couldn't see the stars, but somehow the black void of the sky fit his mood.


	17. Chapter 17

Laura strolled into Sloane's office.  He smiled at her as he hung up the phone.  "Is something wrong, Laura?"

She tossed the paper down in front of him.  Eloise Kurtz's smiling face looked up at them both.  "You retired her, didn't you?"

Picking up the paper, Sloane sighed.  "Echo Park can be a dangerous place for a girl to go alone."

"She was a new promotion here, Arvin," Laura snapped, crossing her arms.

Sloane became deadly serious.  He threw the paper down.  "Whether or not I retired is not really the pressing question, is it?  No, that question is why did you send her to talk to a reporter without running it by me first?"

Laura's stomach turned, even though she realized what had happened as soon as she saw the obituary this morning.  "I wasn't trying to hide it, Arvin, but Will is--"

"Will Tippin," Sloane said, sitting down.

"Yeah, Will," Laura sighed.  She rubbed her forehead.  "He's a friend of Sydney's.  He was looking into the name Kate Jones, one of her aliases.  I gave Eloise Kurtz the task of leading him down a dead end so he'd drop it."  Now she had lost that chance.

"Laura," Sloane said, his laser eyes focused on her.  "You underestimated Tippin and Agent Kurtz's lack of field experience.  You put us all at risk.  Why were you using a junior agent?"

At least she had an answer there.  "You'll have to ask McCullough that, Arvin.  I used her because of his assessment of her field ability.  He gave her his highest rating."  She sighed and looked at him.  "I had contingencies, Arvin."  She waved her hand.  "All of which are irrelevant now."

Sloane leaned forward.  "Tell me something.  How did Tippin get a lead on the Kate Jones alias in the first place?"

Laura kept her face passive through years of training.  She was treading dangerous water.  "I don't know, but I am looking into it."

"Well," Sloane said, leaning back in his chair.  "Your efforts notwithstanding, that reporter may be a casualty of his own curiosity."

"That's a last resort!"  She took in a deep breath.  "I know you want what's best for Sydney, and if at all possible, we should spare her the pain of losing someone else.  Besides, another death may draw Jack's attention, and we don't need that to happen."

Sloane nodded.  "True.  So, how do you suggest we proceed?"

She leaned against the desk.  "Let me handle it, Arvin.  In my own way.  I'll get Will off the story."

"And if you don't?"

His eyes studied her.  She didn't betray herself with as much as a flicker of an eyelash when she lied.  "Then I'll kill him myself."

***

Laura was still worrying about Will when her daughter flew past her.  "Slow down!" she said automatically and then winced.  Sometimes it was hard for mothers to remember to not act like mothers.

Sydney stopped and stared at her.  Laura watched her daughter's face, saw the slow recognition.  "Sorry."

"You are angry."

"Very," Sydney snapped.  She stared down at something wrapped in her hands.

"What's happened?"  Surely, Sloane had not gone ahead and ordered Will's murder?

Sydney took in a shaky breath, and Laura realized her fears were wrong.  If Will was dead, Sydney would not have stopped.  She would have gone for Arvin Sloane's throat.

"I had a tracker."

Laura's eyebrows rose.  "What?"

"I spotted a man following me, and I confronted him.  Found out he was a tracker," Sydney said through gritted teeth.

Laura felt someone walk over her grave.  McCullough assigning a tracker to Sydney was not a good sign, especially considering some of her daughter's actions lately.  Could she have been a part of the CIA's--No, if the CIA knew, then Jack would know.  And, if Jack knew, he would have already confronted her, demanded answers.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got a debriefing--"

Laura put her arm on Sydney's shoulder.  "I know this isn't a good time, but I was wondering if we could do a girl's day tomorrow."

"A girls' day?"  Sydney sounded like she had never heard of it before, and then she grinned.  "A girls' day.  We haven't done one of those in a long time."

"No, we haven't."

Sydney looked towards Sloane's office.  "Let me talk to Sloane, do my debriefing, and then why don't we use the rest of today as a girl's day.  I have a paper that needs fixing."

Laura stared at her daughter.  "Fixing?"

Sydney shifted one her feet like a guilty teenager.  "I got a 'D'!"

"A 'D'!  Sydney--" Laura stopped herself.  "Sorry.  It's hard for me to leave the mother behind on some days.  Go to your meeting.  I'll get some paperwork done while I wait for you."

Sydney grinned and rushed away.  Laura could see the anger returning as her shoulders tensed and her stride became a march.

***

Sydney sat in the briefing room and wished she were somewhere else.  She was still furious about the tracker.  Furious and scared.  Sloane was right; they did give up privacy when they joined.  However, she had never had a tracker before now.  The occasional watching by Security Section, but nothing as intense as a tracker.

Sloane began the meeting.  "The clock you retrieved was designed by Giovanni Donato."  Even though Sydney hated helping SD-6 in any way, she had to admit she was happy that she had retrieved that clock.  Right out from beneath Anna's nose.

"He died in 1503," Sloane continued.  "His initials are engraved on the bottom.  Now, Donato was a master clock-maker, but more importantly, he was the one man Milo Rambaldi ever collaborated with.  There is a single reference to Donato in our Rambaldi archive.  Apparently, Rambaldi commissioned the clock himself."

Sloane's fascination with Rambaldi was getting annoying.  "And because of Rambaldi's involvement, you think it's more than just a clock."

"That was Rambaldi's style," he answered.  "Hiding codes in designs within his artwork.  Go, Marshall."

Marshall stood, looking uncomfortable.  He smiled.  "Um, now, I know we're all a bit hungry for lunch, so I'll try to use the maximum amount of brevity possible.  And, okay, now, as a clock, this piece was far ahead of its time.  Margin of error less than one second per decade, and the weirdest part about it is this gear assembly.  I mean, part of it is that it doesn't seem to have any real purpose."

Sydney examined the clock.  "This number on the back--What is it?  A date?"

"Well, we're analyzing that.  You know what we found so far?  Nothing happened that day.  Literally.  It's the one day in history that is basically zero things occurred."

Sloane retook control of the briefing.  "We have a very good reason to believe that this clock will reveal another piece of the Rambaldi puzzle.  The problem is: the clock doesn't work.  Without specific instructions, we can't risk damaging it.  We've located a direct descendant of Donato in Positano.  Luckily, he went into the family business.  Your mission, Agent Bristow, is quiet simple.  Take the clock to Donato, get him to fix it, and bring it back."

Sydney was amazed; she couldn't remember the last time she had an assignment that was so easy.  "That's it?"

Sloane smiled.  "That's it."

***

"What's wrong?" Laura asked Linda.  The woman might only be support staff, but she always had a knack for knowing what was going on.  Laura had been careful to cultivate a friendship with her over the years, and the frown on Linda's face told her something serious was about to happen.  She was usually smiling and laughing.

After taking a sip of her coffee, Linda replied, "Carl Dryer's coming in to upgrade the biometric scanners."  Laura bit back a groan.  "Go ahead," Linda said.  "I won't tell anyone."

"What?"

Linda smiled.  "I know you want to either groan or curse.  Feel free."

Laura smiled back.  "I'm too professional for that."

"Well, I'm not," Linda replied.  "I can't believe I have to work with that bastard again."

Laura poured her own cup of coffee.  "Surely, after last time, Sloane wouldn't--"

"_Sloane_ wouldn't?"  Linda laughed and Laura winced.

"Damn.  Do you want me to talk to him?"  Laura doubted he would listen, but maybe she could make him see reason.

Linda shook her head.  "No thanks, Laura.  You and I both know that if I don't face my punishment in this way, then he'll just find something else much worse."

He would, too.  Sloane loved making points.  Assigning Linda to work with Dryer again after what happened last time would be an affective reminder to Linda what her place in the organization was; Sloane had to know that many people had admired Linda for her daring.

"I'm sorry, Linda."

Her smile was tight and small.  "I know you are, Laura.  Don't worry about me.  I'm going to the store tonight to buy one of those punching bags that look like a man's body.  I'm going to paste Dryer's face to it."

Laura grinned.  "I might have to come over and use it a few times while he's in."

Sighing, Linda nodded.  "I'm hoping it will last for his visit.  If it is anything like the last time, I'm going to have a line outside my door waiting to hit it."

Laughing, Laura walked back towards her office.  Her smile disappeared as soon as she walked inside.  Dryer coming made every instinct in her body scream.  If Sloane was suspecting a double, Dryer would the man he'd turned to sniff the double out.  Everyone in the building would be given a functional imaging test, a lie detector test that was far more accurate and far harder to fool than standard tests.  

Laura thought about what happened when Sydney had been in Romania.  Marshall had noticed some computer abnormalities.  Since nothing had been said about it, Laura had assumed that it was a system error.  She had been in this business long enough to know better, but she thought she had Sloane's trust.  But maybe her daughter was a suspect, and maybe SD-6's network had been compromised.

"Hey, Mom," Sydney said as she walked in behind her.  Laura turned to look at her.  "Are you okay?"

She forced herself to smile.  "I'm fine, honey.  I just found out that Carl Dryer is coming in to upgrade the biometric scanners.  Which means we will all probably be getting new functioning imaging tests done."

"What's that?" Sydney asked, sliding the strap of her purse back up her arm.

"Lie detector test.  Only it's more accurate and much harder to deceive," Laura told her.  She realized then that she was warning her own daughter; she was suspicious of her own daughter.  "It monitors variations in blood flow to the brain."

Laura realized that she didn't care about being suspicious.  She wanted her daughter to be safe.  She would look at the evidence later and realize how flimsy it was, that Sydney would never betray her that way.  Sydney was not the type to go to an enemy power, even if she did know that SD-6 was not what she had thought it was.

"Doesn't sound like fun," Sydney said, shrugging it off.  "Let's go have some fun."  Laura nodded and reached for her purse.  Sydney smiled as they walked out of the office.  "You're not going to believe my assignment."


	18. Chapter 18

"So, what do you think?" Laura asked as she stepped out of her dressing room.  She and her daughter both stared at one another and then laughed together.  They both were wearing the same skirt.  It was short, simulated leather.

"It looks great on you," they both said at the same time.  They laughed again.

Laura stared at the mirror and sighed.  "It looks better on you.  My legs are getting as old as the rest of me."

"You have great legs, ma'am," the salesclerk told her.  She sounded sincere.

"Thank you, Barbara," Laura said with a grateful smile on her lips.

Sydney walked up to stand beside her.  "Tina Turner's older than you and they insured her legs for a million bucks."

"I don't have Tina Turner's legs," Laura answered with a grin.

"No, I think yours are nicer," her daughter replied.  "I wish I had inherited your legs."

After Laura had arranged for Jack to collide into her outside the Library of Congress, he had immediately started helping to pick up her scattered papers.  His hand had accidentally rubbed across her leg, and she had watched the cool, confident man become a blushing schoolboy.  She had felt contempt for his weakness.

"I was an idiot," she whispered.

"What?"  Sydney stared at her in the mirror.

She shook her head.  "I was thinking when I first met your father.  I was idiot.  It took me years to appreciate what I had."

Sydney laid her head over on her shoulders.  "You always loved him."

Laura thought about those early days, about how much she had laughed from honest joy, how much she had enjoyed being with the man she had been assigned to spy on.  "Yeah, I did.  It just took a long time to realize it," she whispered.

"Come on," she said, straightening her back and gently pulling away from Sydney.  "Let's go get a late lunch.  These heels are killing my feet."

Sydney smiled and nodded.  "And I want you to look over my paper."

Laura grinned.  "You're in luck.  Even after all these years, I still carry about a red ink pen."

***

Her mother looked up from her paper with a frown on her face.  "Your professor cut you more slack than I would have.  I would have given you an F."

"Mom--"

"Don't 'Mom' me," Laura said as she picked up the porcelain coffee cup.  "I know you are capable of far better work than this."  She started scribbling notes on the paper.

"He said it didn't have any soul."

Laura looked at her and frowned.  "It doesn't."

Sydney grinned.  "I feel like I'm in high school again."

Her mother reached across the table and patted her hand.  "Remind me to give you my copy of the book when you drop me off."

"I have a copy--"

"You have an electronic version of it," Laura replied.  She took another sip of her coffee and smiled when the waiter arrived to freshen her cup.  "Which is great for searching or for reading when you are traveling.  But I think you have to hold a book in order to be able to connect to its soul."

"I've written plenty of papers with soul and never put a hand on a physical book," Sydney replied with a grin.

Laura smiled.  "They might have some soul, but I bet they would have had more if you had a hardback copy of it in your hands."

***

She looked up from the laptop and smiled at her friend as he walked in through the door.  "Hey, Will."

"Hey," he answered, rubbing her arm.

"Hey," Sydney replied back.

He knew exactly what she was doing; he had seen her work on enough of papers over the years.  "What's the paper on?"

"It's a redo.  Professor said is didn't have any soul, so I'm writing a paper with soul.  It's got lots of soul!"  She laughed.  "I didn't have any choice but to put some soul into it after Mom ripped it to shreds."

Will winced.  "Oh, yeah.  If you take a paper to Laura Bristow, you take it to be murdered.  Of course, it's a far better paper than you ever wrote by the time she's done with it."

Sydney nodded as he picked up the book beside her.  He read the inscription inside.  Sydney had stared at it for five minutes when she had opened the book.  "'Laura, all my love forever and a day, Jack.'"  Will sighed.  "Sounds just like your dad.  He adores your mother."

Sydney's fingers slowed down on the keyboard.  He had adored Laura, and sometimes Sydney thought he still did, but nothing was clear anymore.  She reminded herself that it wasn't her concern, that her father could and would handle it himself.  And her mother had made her own choices.  She told herself that, but she still worried like the daughter she was.

"I got your message," Will said, putting down the book.  "You're going on another trip?  That's, like, what's that?  Seven this month?  The bank ever going to let up?"

He went to the refrigerator and helped himself to something to drink.  Sydney thought about what her mother had said earlier.  She thought about her phone call to Jack and his response.  Will's voice brought her out of her thoughts.  "What's up?"

Sydney wished she could tell him.  Really tell him.  Share her worries with someone.  Then, she thought about Danny.  The desire to tell the truth left her.  "There's this situation at work.  Just some money is missing from petty cash, and it looks like there might be a formal inquiry."

"They don't suspect you, do they?"  Will believed in her, trusted her completely.  Sometimes it hurt.

"No," Sydney answered, lying.  "But it looks like they're going to give us all lie detector tests, which is just--"

"Can I make a suggestion, just for, like the eight millionth time?"  Sydney knew what the suggestion was going to be before he said it; Will _had_ made the suggestion eight million times before.  So had Danny and Francie.  "Why don't you just quit your job?  I mean, you can get a job anywhere.  I don't know, I just--I just think it's weird."

"I know," Sydney sighed.  She thought about Danny making the same suggestion just after he proposed.  She started playing with the ring he had given her that day.  She saw Will looking at her, looking at it.  "I still wear this."

"I know," he whispered.

The phone rang before he could say anything else.  "Joey's Pizza," said the unfamiliar voice on the other side.  Now that she was not living at home, the CIA had devised a new way of letting her know when to meet with Vaughn.  Jack no longer had to act like go-between.  She had been expecting this call; Vaughn had to show her how to defeat the test.

"Wrong number," she answered as she hung up.  She looked over at her friend.  "What are you doing here?"

"I just, uh, came by to say hi," he answered, and for a moment she thought he was lying to her.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said back.

***

Laura sighed.  She had finally realized how to kill the story.  She hated to do it to Will, but he needed to learn to document everything anyway.  She was counting on the fact that he hadn't; if he had, she wouldn't be able to save him from Sloane and Security Section.  "Seth," she called as she walked over to the man's desk.  "Can you get in touch with my contact at the airlines?  I need to put a back trace on a passenger manifest.  I'll be in my office."

Seth nodded and started dialing before she even started to walk away from him.  She liked efficiency.

***

Jack sighed as he read Sydney's report.  She had narrowly missed death again.  If the clock maker had not stood at that exact moment--

"Are you okay, Jack?"  Vaughn was leaning against his office door.  Almost everyone was gone from the building.

"I'm fine," he answered.  He looked down at the folder in front of him again and felt his stomach turn.  He decided he didn't care why Vaughn had decided not to be a field agent; he was just glad he hadn't.  He wouldn't be able to handle reading these types of reports for him and Sydney both.

Vaughn walked on into the office, shutting the door behind him.  "It was supposed to be a simple assignment."

"She made sure to be prepared, just in case.  It saved her life," Jack said.  A hook in her backpack had saved her life.  "She's good."

"Really good," Vaughn agreed.  "She's happy that she managed to get away from Anna."

Jack grinned, thinking about an old rival who was long dead.  "Sometimes it just becomes personal.  The other man is out to get you and only you, or at least it feels that way."

Vaughn stared at him for a moment and then looked away.  "I mentioned the Calder file to her, told her that I had asked you about it."

Jack stiffened.  He looked over at his minibar and then reminded himself that he was in control.  He was the one in charge of himself, but if he kept drinking like a fish to hide from the pain, he wouldn't be the one in charge for long.  The bottle would be.  He had seen too many of his colleagues fall under its spell.

"She didn't tell me that you told her about it," Vaughn said, finally looking back at him.  His hands were crossed in front of him.  "But I know you did.  I know her, and she was lying to me to protect you.  Why would tell her what you wouldn't tell me?  Why was that part of your file even missing?"

Vaughn bit his lip and looked down.  "It's something to do with my dad, isn't it?  The time frame's right."

Jack opened his mouth.  Vaughn shook his head and help up his hand.  He stood and started pacing.  "I don't want to know.  Not right now.  You don't need me to be pissed off at you."

"I don't need you to be wondering either," Jack sighed.  "Sit, Michael.  There's something I need to tell you."

***

Sydney flopped down on the couch and sighed.  "Ahh, yeah . . . ."

Francie walked into the room.  "Hey, welcome back."

Sydney lifted her legs so her friend could sit down on the couch, then she lowered them again.  "Thanks."

"Okay, so the good news is, I went by your professor's office to drop off the paper, but he wasn't in.  So, the secretary wanted me to leave it with her, only remember sophomore year?"  Francie had never forgiven that secretary.  "So, I waited around and handed it to him personally."

Sydney smiled.  It was good to have friends you could depend on.  "Thank you, Francie.  Was there bad news?"

Francie sighed.  "Yeah.  I was making lemonade, and I spilled it all over your mom's book.  I called her and told her about it--"

"She told you not to worry about it.  Don't," Sydney said.  "Mom's always believed that books were meant to be read--everywhere and anywhere.  The pages should be stained with life, she used to tell me."

Francie grinned.  "I like your mom."

"I like her, too," Sydney said.  Their girls' day out had been long overdue.  Sydney thought about arranging another one soon.

"Thanks for turning in the paper," she told her friend.

Francie smiled.  "You're welcome."


	19. Chapter 19

Picking up her glass of wine, Sydney reached over to turn off the light.  She spotted her mother's book lying where she had laid it earlier.  She had looked through that novel so much lately that she thought she would never look at it again.  Suddenly, she wanted to read it.  To actually read it, to be lost in the story instead of worrying about motifs.

Grinning, she picked it up and headed for the bedroom.  She lit a candle and settled into bed.  Leaning back against the pillows, she began to read, letting the story carry her away to a different time and place.

She was several pages into the story when she noticed the writing in the margins.  She held it up to the lamp, but she couldn't make out the dim markings.  She picked up the candle and held it beneath the page.

Her heart stopped.  She recognized the code.  One-time pads.  Blocks of cipher-text written in sets of five Cyrillic letters.  A staple of the now-defunct KGB.  Tossing the book away from her, she started trembling.  It was impossible.  She wouldn't believe it.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she thought about what Laura had said during their shopping.  She had not appreciated him at first.  Now, thinking about the code in those books, Sydney had to wonder if her mom had been totally honest.  She wasn't regretting not appreciating him enough; she had honestly not appreciated him at all.

No, no, no, no, no.  She had to be wrong.  There had to be some other explanation.  Only Sydney couldn't think of one.  These books had arrived every month for the first ten years of their marriage.  Laura had told her about their honeymoon, about the incredible book store in Prague.  Sydney had found it romantic, and she had hated to hear that Laura had insisted that Jack stop paying for them after ten years.  "We had medical bills that needed to be paid more, and your father fought me all the way on that decision, but I won," Laura had told her with a smile.  The standing order had been cancelled.

Now, Sydney thought about that standing order and the timing.  She thought about Calder and his order to kill a rogue agent.  She thought abut the fact that her mother had never needed to disappear for any training when she joined SD-6.

Curling up into a ball, Sydney resisted the urge to scream.  She wouldn't be able to explain it to Francie.  Instead she cried and held a pillow over her head, as if it could block out all the thoughts that were now trying to overwhelm her.

***

"Did Sydney seem okay to you?" Jack asked as he stepped into Vaughn's office.

Jack saw the tension and the flash of anger on Vaughn's face.  He had been upset to find out the man he had trusted for the last two decades had lied to him at the beginning.  "She seemed a little stressed, a little pale, but otherwise okay," Vaughn answered mechanically.

"Something is bothering her," Jack said as he paced.  "But she wouldn't tell me.  She said it was the test she had been given by Dryer, but I know she was lying."

"A Bristow family trait," Vaughn said.  Then, he winced.  "Jack, I'm sorry."

Jack stared at him.  That cut had gone deep; it was a family trait.  "I understand."

Vaughn rubbed his neck as he sighed, "I just wish you had told me.  Sometime in the last twenty or so years."

Jack agreed.  "I should have.  I'm sorry, Michael."

"Why didn't you?"  Vaughn stared at him, waiting for an answer.

The smile on Jack's face was weak.  "I wish I knew, Michael.  Maybe I didn't want you to know that there was enough evidence to suggest your father was involved in something underhanded.  Maybe I didn't want you to know that I was fallible."

Vaughn sighed.  "Why was there so much evidence?"

Jack hated hearing the doubt in that voice.  "If I had to guess, he was being framed to take the fall."

"What?"  Vaughn's jaw was open.

"I think someone was framing your father, but I don't know why.  Or why we suddenly found the evidence clearing him."  Jack stood and prepared to leave.  "Call me when Sydney gets from Argentina, please."

"Jack, she'll be okay.  I gave her a CIA satellite phone."

Satellite phones for doubles were not standard issue.  "Why did you do that?"

"I don't know," Vaughn admitted, looking down at his hands.  "I just thought she might need it."

"You'd better watch it," Jack said with a small smile on his face.  "Or I'm going to think that I'm talking to your Aunt Trish."

"Oh, please," Vaughn said.  "Don't even get me started.  I'm still trying to figure out this clock Rambaldi had made and how the hell he used it and that polymer sun that Sydney recovered to make a star chart."

"Or how he got to the southern slop of Mount Aconcagua XXX on the Chile/Argentina border on August 16, 1523 at 12:22 AM GMT in the first place."  Jack and his colleagues had been having a field trying to figure out those answers.

"And drew an exact star chart," Vaughn replied.  He rubbed his forehead.  "I'm getting a headache, Jack."

Jack knew the feeling.  "How's Alice?" he asked, changing the subject.

Vaughn froze for a second.  Then, he smiled, but Jack knew it was fake.  "Good; hinting for a ring."

"You're not ready for marriage," Jack said before he thought.  He knew that Vaughn's feelings for Alice had continued to decline.

Vaughn looked at him and then shook his head.  "I know."

"She would have made you a good wife," Jack told him.  She would have, too, before Vaughn met Sydney and started yearning for something else, something besides the safe path that he had always taken.

"Sydney's not sure what the test results are yet, but she declined my offer of protection," Vaughn told him suddenly.

Jack's heart ached.  "I know.  She's too much like her father; he would rather be free to fight then hide like a frightened animal."

Vaughn's smile was weak but real.  "That's what I was thinking."

Jack wanted to warn him again to not fall in love with Sydney, to take the easier path.  But he knew it wouldn't do any good.  Vaughn was determined to follow his own path in life.  And his own heart.  He was too much like Jack in that way.

***

Sydney sat down after she entered Sloane's office.  She had been in Marshall's office for a tech briefing when he arrived saying that he needed to talk to her.  Her heart pounded in her chest, but she didn't let him see her sweat.

"I should start with your test results," Sloane said as he sat down at is desk.  Sydney couldn't breathe as she waited for him to continue.  "You passed just fine.  The numbers were normal."

Sydney wasn't sure how to respond.  She knew she shouldn't grin and shout--her first reaction.  Instead, she said, "I'd hope so."

"I know what a difficult time this is," he said, trying to sound like the caring man he was not.  "I understand, with Dixon in the hospital--"

"Have you heard anything?"  Sydney demanded to know.  Dixon had been shot in Argentina by K-Directorate.  Sydney herself had almost died after being knocked from the top of a tall ladder.  By some miracle that no one could explain, Sydney's leg had caught on one of the rings of the rope ladder, stopping her fall.  She should have at least been seriously hurt; instead she only had some sore muscles.

Now, she had to wait and see if Dixon remembered her using the CIA sat phone.  He had said her call name twice after she used it.  Sloane had been told that Sydney had dragged Dixon back to the Humvee, and that she had drove him to the hospital.  However, Dixon might be able to tell him that he had been flown there by helicopter.

"Yes," Sloane answered.  "He's still unconscious.  They're not sure how bad it is.  Look, Sydney," he said, leaning against his desk.  "I don't blame you for not talking to me the way you used to, for hating me, since what happened with Danny.  Please believe me when I tell you it was the last thing I wanted.  The last thing.  I begged security section not to take that action."

Sydney's heart stopped.  Then it began to beat again with rage.  She knew he was lying; she knew it.  He had never liked Danny.  It was the reason she pulled off her engagement ring the minute she had stepped inside the building the day after Danny proposed; she knew he would not be happy for her.

"No, you didn't," Sydney said, ignoring the voice that sounded like her father telling her to be careful.

Sloane did not look surprised.  "Well, you don't have to believe me."

"Why would you try and stop what you had ordered?" she demanded.  She would not pretend that he was not responsible; she would not pretend that she not hate him for what he had done to Danny.

"Because of you," he told her.  "I always knew there was something about you, from the first time I saw you."

Sydney felt like throwing up.  "A lot can change in seven years."

"It's been a lot longer than seven years," he admitted.  She couldn't hide her surprise.  "I met your father in 1971.  Because of the sensitive nature of his job at Jennings' Aerospace, he was subjected to security reviews.  He knew a lot of agents."

"Which is why I could never say your name around him," Sydney realized.

"Yes, it is.  He would know my name instantly.  We liked one another.  We were friends, Sydney.  Jack would recognize my name immediately."  Sydney listened, wanting to know the history he shared with her father.  Jack would never tell her.  "I was even invited to his wedding to your mother."

"That's where you met her," Sydney said.

"Not exactly.  I had met her before the wedding.  Had dinner with them and so forth," Sloane told her.  "I liked her; I thought she was good for your father."

"You're the one who recruited her," Sydney said, trying to make it sound like a question.

Sloane nodded.  "Yes, I saw her potential.  I knew she would be an excellent resource for SD-6."

He leaned forward and smiled.  "I've known you, Sydney, since you were a baby.  I was out of the country for most of your childhood, various operations, but I kept tabs on you."  Sydney felt a shiver of dread climb her spine.  He had been watching her for most of her life.  Would she ever be able to escape from him?

"I checked in on you in my own way," he continued.  "I always thought of you as my daughter, even from the beginning.  Well, I just wanted to let you know . . . before you went away."

***

"It was like he was saying goodbye," Sydney told Vaughn later.  

"Like he knew that I'm not coming back."

"You're going to be okay.  We'll get through this.  Just contact me as soon as you get back," her handler told her.  He was sitting behind her at an outdoor café.

"I know.  With his account numbers," Sydney said.

"No, I mean, with or without the account.  Just as soon as you get back."

Sydney could hear the concern in his words.  He had his doubts, too.  Sloane's behavior had been odd.  "Okay," she told him.

"Okay?"

"Okay."  This time it was a promise.

***

Weiss rushed over to him.  Vaughn noted the sheet of paper in his hand, but he was more concerned by the worried look on his friend's face.  Weiss did not take much seriously in life.  

"Agent Bristow has been made," he said.  "We just unlocked this communiqué off of the SD-6 server."

Vaughn grabbed the printout from his hands.  "What?"

"Ten p.m., Dinatti Park.  They're going to kill her."  Vaughn saw the compassion in his eyes.  His friend knew that his feelings for Sydney were not what they should be.  "SD-6 is going to kill her.  We have to tell Davenport, but he's not in his office."

Vaughn picked up the phone, dialing a number from memory.  He always made sure to have the certain numbers memorized when Sydney went on a mission.  He wanted to be able to respond instantly.  "Yes, it's Vaughn.  We need an extraction team assembled in Italy.  No, Tuscany.  We only have two hours!"

He started heading for the elevator.  "I'll go tell Davenport!"  Devlin was in DC at Langley.

"I just told you: he's not in his office!"  Weiss reminded him.

"I'm going to go find him," Vaughn said over his shoulder.  "Get Jack on the phone!"

"Jack?  Got ya," Weiss said.  Vaughn saw him on the phone as he headed out of the room.

***

"Jack," Vaughn said as soon as his friend stormed into the room.

"Call them off, Michael," Jack snapped.  "Now."

Vaughn felt like he had fallen down the rabbit hole.  "What?  Didn't you read Sloane's transmission?  She'll be in that park any minute, Jack."

"No execution has been ordered.  This is a set-up, Michael.  I know it," Jack explained.  Vaughn could see the strain on the older man's face.

"What are you talking about?"

Jack sighed and unbuttoned his jacket.  "Michael, this is what I do.  Game strategy.  My first instinct was to pull her out, too, but I know Arvin Sloane.  Know him very well."

Walking over to Vaughn, he explained.  "I'm willing to bet that SD-6 has spotted your computer hacking.  I'm also willing to bet that they are using it as a test, to see if Sydney is a mole."

Vaughn shook his head.  "Jack, that's an awful large bet.  Let's pull Sydney out of there and figure out strategy later."

"Michael," Jack said through gritted teeth.  "You go in like this, you pull her out, it'll only prove that you've intercepted Sloane's communiqué, and Sydney will be exposed."

"You don't know that for a fact!"

Jack stared at him for a minute.  Vaughn was shocked by what he did next; he turned to Davenport.  "Lloyd, abort this mission."

"Wait a minute!"  Vaughn could not believe Jack had gone over his head, had ignored his concerns.

"We verified this order, Jack," Davenport was telling him.  "We pull back, you could be killing your daughter."

"You're killing her if you don't!" Jack growled.

Vaughn felt doubt.  He had always trusted Jack's instincts before.  Maybe he should trust them now.  "Why are you willing to risk this, Jack?"

Jack looked at him.  He leaned forward as he explained, "If Sydney makes her scheduled dead-drop, does it successfully, and leaves the park, she will have proven herself loyal to SD-6."

"Have them hold 'til we give the order," Vaughn told Weiss.  His friend nodded and gave the order.

Vaughn stared back at the man who had taught him everything I know.  "There is a man in that park that could kill her if we do nothing."

Jack shook his head, and Vaughn could see Jack's certainty.  "You are the only ones who saw the transmission, Michael.  I know Sloane.  He's bluffing."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because this is about betrayal.  Arvin Sloane has an odd definition of betrayal.  It's the reason he left the CIA.  He takes it very personally, and he would never, ever, let someone else take care of that kind of problem."  Jack stared at him.  "Trust me."

When Vaughn heard the team tell him that two vehicles not on their list were in the park, he resisted the urge to tell them to protect Sydney.  When they announced a man in a red jacket heading towards her, he clenched his fist and reminded himself that Jack was an expert on strategy.  "This could be our guy," 

Weiss told him.  "This could be the hit.  What are we doing here?"

Vaughn looked over at Jack.  "Jack, promise me you're not wrong about this!"  Jack nodded, and Vaughn let out the breath he had been holding.  "Hold your position," Vaughn said.

He heard the entire room sigh and breathe again when the man in the red jacket passed by her.  She made her dead drop and left the park.  Davenport smiled at Jack.  "Good work, Jack."

Jack nodded, and Vaughn saw the doubt for the first time.  They both stared at one another, and Vaughn finally understood the cost his friend had just paid.  His instincts as a father had been to pull her out, but he had fought against them--and Vaughn--because of his training.  This would be his future if he let himself care too much about Sydney.  Jack nodded again and left the room.

"Oy.  I just lost thirty pounds," Weiss announced to the room, trying to relieve some of the tension.  "I'm not kidding."  Vaughn realized that he had just lost his innocence; he had learned what this job was going to cost him.


	20. Chapter 20

Diane met Sydney out in the hallway.  She had called earlier to let Sydney know that her husband was awake.  As they headed towards Dixon's room, Sloane walked past them, but didn't look at them.  When they got to the room, Diane opened it and waved Sydney in.  "It's okay.  Go on in.  I'm going to go get some coffee."

"Okay," Sydney said, grateful for the time alone.  She knew it had to be hard for Diane to leave him.  "Thanks."

Dixon opened his eyes as she approached his bed.  "Hey," she whispered.

"Hey," his strained voice replied.

"It's so good to see you."  He looked like hell, but he was alive.

"You, too," her friend whispered.

She sat down next to him.  "Dixon.  Do you know what--Do you remember what happened?"

"The last thing I remember," he answered.  "I was walking out and trying to link to the satellite.  And that sweet smile of yours."

Sydney couldn't help it.  She laughed and smiled.  "Yup," Dixon said with his own smile.  "There it is."

***

Later, Sydney walked into the hospital's parking garage.  She was tired and ready to hit the bed.  Sloane had sent her and Russek to Sweden to steal money back from Ineni Hassan.  Vaughn had let her know that she was responsible for the bad blood between Hassan and SD-6.  Hassan thought SD-6 was responsible for the nuclear core that she had stolen, so he had taken SD-6's money and not delivered on his last arms shipment before disappearing.

She was also happy.  Dixon was alive!  And he hadn't remembered; once more her cover had remained intact.

Her mind was lost in thoughts, which was it took her a moment to see the black car that pulled up in front of her slowly.  Two men got out and started approaching her.  Sydney's instincts told her that running instead of fighting was the smarter option.

She began walking in the other direction; she could hear the car following.  Then, she heard the men begin to run after her, so she began running, too.

Another car surprised her, coming out of nowhere.  Her whole body screamed in pain when the car hit her, causing her to fly across the hood.  She heard the two men get out of the car, but her aching body would not listen to her.  The men held her down, and she heard the sound of a tranquilizing gun being shot before the world went black.

***

"Laura," Linda said, walking into her office.  "There's a problem," she whispered.  She put down a folder on Laura's desk.  Laura looked at her, confusion written on her face.  "Steven told me to give that to you," she said before walking away.

Laura's back muscles tensed.  Steven was a friend of hers inside Security Section.  She always made it a policy to make friends in all the different departments.  They could save your ass when those at the top didn't give a damn.  Reaching for the folder, Laura realized this time it might be her daughter who was in trouble.

Her heart stopped as she read the report.  He daughter had been under suspicion for some time.  Sloane had increased security reviews of her since Danny's death; a smart move on his part.  Sydney was not the type to easily forgive betrayal; she was like him in that aspect.

She had passed a recent test, but they had detected a signal in Geneva.  It originated from their location, and they knew it was not one of theirs.  That meant either Sydney or Russek had sent the transmission.  Sydney was the obvious choice.

Laura breathed in several deep breaths, reminding herself to keep her cool.  She could not save her daughter if she was an emotional wreck.  Cool thinking was Sydney's only hope.

Reaching back in one of desk drawers, she reached up and felt the tiny item tapes to the side of the desk.  The adhesive made a ripping sound as she yanked at it.  Her fingers wrapped around it, and she slid it into her pocket.  It would help her hack into SD-6's computers.

Sydney might be the logical choice, but she wasn't the only one there.  Laura walked out of her office and headed towards the server room.

***

Laura stared at her daughter.  Sydney looked pale and shaken but otherwise okay.  "Come to my office," she said, turning on her heels and walking away.

Sydney followed behind.  She sighed as she sank down into the chair.  "I don't think I ever want to go through that again."

Wanting to scream, Laura plastered a smile on her face.  "I heard.  Russek.  Who would have thought it?"

"I never did," Sydney said, her eyebrows raised in concentration.  She was wondering if Russek really was a mole.  Laura wanted to shake her, to tell her that she had sacrificed him to save Sydney.  He had not been an innocent, but Sydney would not appreciate that fact.  He had not been guilty of the crime he had been executed for, and that was all that would matter to her.

Besides, the walls had ears in this place.  It would not be safe to tell her here.  Who knew if Sloane or McCullough was listening?  If they were, and she made a slip of the tongue, she and Sydney both would be dead.

Dead by the slow, torturous method that Russek was now enduring.

Laura also knew that she needed to get her own head straight before she talked to Sydney.  She was emotionally drained from the changes in her life.  She needed to be patient, to observe, to find out whom her daughter was working for before she confronted her.

But that didn't mean she couldn't warn her of her folly.

"I thought Russek was a smarter man than that," Laura said with a tight smile on her face.  "Being a double agent is a messy and dangerous life decision."

Sydney stared into her eyes.  Biting her bottom lip, she nodded, "I bet it is," she whispered.

***

"That's impossible," Vaughn said.  He was not looking at her today.  She was behind his back, standing next to the flower stand, smelling all the varieties.  He was sitting at a table, pretending to read a paper.

"I know," Sydney said, blinking away the tears in her eyes.  "It _is_ impossible.  Russek didn't send a transmission to K-Directorate."

"So you think it was all a set up?"  Vaughn asked her.  She could hear the concern in his voice.  She remembered their first conversation.  She had ignored him for the most part as she wrote her deposition, and then she had been furious with him when he began questioning the glaring hole in her report.

She liked this man.  She respected him.  Not only because Jack did--which had helped her trust him faster--but because he cared, honestly cared, about her.  He had even been willing to copy Jack's file for her, to help her find answers to questions she didn't even know to ask.

"No," she admitted.  She didn't want to tell him this.  Didn't want to believe it herself.  "Mom found out about it somehow.  She set Russek up to be the sacrificial lamb.  She let them kill him, an innocent, for what I did."

She saw his shoulders stiffen.  "You can't know that for sure."

"I know.  Mom talked to me in her office afterwards.  She told me that being a double agent was messy and dangerous and stupid.  It was a warning to me," Sydney said.  Her smile was sad.  "I've heard enough warnings from my mother to recognize them, even when she tries to hide them."

"So you think your mother knows that you are a double?"  Vaughn asked.

Sydney barely resisted shaking her head.  "No, Vaughn, I don't think it.  I know it."

***

"Damn."  It was the only thing Jack could think to say.  He stared out the windows at the darkened LA skyline.  Vaughn had walked in as soon as the meeting had broken up, and Jack had known immediately that he wasn't going to like what the younger man had to say.

He turned to look at Vaughn and leaned back against the glass.  He was exhausted.  Today's meeting had been the most brutal to date.  Bill was doing an excellent job of wearing down the witness--Jack.  Now, he had to deal with the fact that his daughter had almost died today, and that his wife might know that Sydney was a double.  "What do you think?"

Vaughn scratched the back of his head.  "I think she may be right, Jack.  We don't have any indication that another signal was sent, and we have no reason to believe that if they spotted the K-Directorate signal--"

"That they wouldn't have spotted ours," Jack said, agreeing.  "Laura is brilliant with computers, and she might have some help inside that we don't know about."

Maybe a lover, the analytical part of his brain supplied.  The animal side of his nature screamed in protest at the thought, but he tried to logically consider the issue.  Laura might have a lover; she had lied about her job.  His instincts rejected the idea though.  She wouldn't take a lover anymore than he would.

"So Laura knows," he whispered.  Maybe it was all finally coming to a close.  Maybe all the lying would soon be over with forever.

He wondered why he didn't feel better about it.

***

Sloane stared at her from across his desk.  Laura knew that she was presenting him with the image of a calm, cool professional.  Inside, she was a cauldron of emotions.  Jack had not been home for the last week because of a sudden business trip.  Her daughter was a double agent for some undetermined agency.  And she felt like her life was about to collapse around her.

"Ineni Hassan doesn't just have a new name," Sloane told her.  "He has a new face and is living in Havana."

"How do you know this?"  Laura asked him, surprised by the intel.  "Sydney hasn't gotten back from Semba yet."

Sloane shook his head.  "We got an unexpected source.  He told us what we need to know.  Hassan is now using the alias Nebseni Sahd, and, as you know, he broke an agreement with SD-6.  He has stolen from us.  The whole community is watching.  We need to set an example with Hassan."

Laura's stomach twisted.  She knew what was coming.  Sloane had picked her to be the example maker.  "Any intel about where in Havana he might be?"

"No, we don't know."  Sloane stood up and walked around his desk.  Leaning back on it, he told her, "That's why I'm sending you to Cuba.  I need you to rendezvous with the usual contacts.  Locate Hassan and take care of it.  Thank you," he said, pushing a stray hair off her face.

She kept herself from flinching.  "I heard about Russek.  And now with Hassan--I understand that it's been a difficult week."

Sloane walked behind her and began massaging her shoulders.  "One night--God, this was years ago--maybe two years before I met Jack.  I'd just finished my first Far East briefing at the White House.  I was new to the CIA.  After the meeting, everyone got into a limousine to head back to Langley, but I didn't.  I told them I was going to walk for a while."

He let go of her shoulders and walked to his desk.  He leaned on the back of the chair.  "They all looked at me sort of funny.  I mean, it was a cold night, so I said I needed to get some air, but the truth is--I was overcome.  It had occurred to me, as I was walking down the White House steps, that I was living in a perfect moment.  Everything was filled with promise.  My role at the CIA, my relationship with a wife that I had not yet met."

Laura nodded.  She had experienced the same feeling after being briefed for her first assignment.

Sloane's eyes told her that he knew she understood.  "Still, I could feel a darkness coming so I wandered around for a while.  Ended up at the Jefferson Memorial.  It's always my favorite one.  Looked out across the basin.  Lincoln right there."

Jack had taken her there for one of their first dates.  He had loved DC, had loved the history it held.  She had hated it then.  She suddenly wanted to go back to DC with Jack, have him show it all to her again.

"I didn't know how it would finally materialize--the darkness.  I had nothing to base it on.  It wasn't as if the CIA had just betrayed me, that my wife had just been diagnosed with lymphoma.  None of that had happened yet.  So, whenever life takes an unfortunate turn, as it has this week, I just remind myself that I could see it coming all along.  You understand that don't you, Laura?  You feel it, too."

Tears stung her eyes.  She looked down to keep him from seeing.  He sighed.  "I want Hassan dead.  By this weekend."

Laura nodded and left him without saying a word.

***

"Jack, you look like shit."

His friend stopped packing and looked up at him.  "Thanks," he mumbled as he placed a linen suit into his luggage.

Vaughn sighed and leaned against the wall.  Jack had been staying in a motel since finding out that Laura knew about Sydney's double agent status.  Devlin had not been thrilled about it, but he had understood Jack's need for distance.

Jack had been scarce at the office, too.  He couldn't go into his office at Jennings' since he was away on a business trip, and he only appeared at headquarters for the debriefings and hearings into the possibility that he had known of his wife's allegiance.

"I don't know why they are sending you," Vaughn finally said, walking further into the room.

The zipper on Jack's luggage muttered as he closed his luggage.  "They are sending me because I have a lot of good contacts in Cuba, especially Havana.  I'm one of the old Cold War spies, Michael."

Vaughn sat down in the uncomfortable chair.  It was the only place to sit besides the bed, which was covered in newspapers and luggage.  "I think it is a mistake to trust Hassan."

"I do, too," Jack admitted.

Vaughn's stomach turned.  He had wanted his mentor to reassure him, not agree with him.  "Damn."

"We need that information, Michael.  And we need to get to Hassan before SD-6's assassin does."  Jack carried his garment bag and sat it next to the door.

"Sydney didn't even give the information to Sloane," Vaughn protested.

Jack put on his jacket.  "Arvin is a smart man, Michael.  He doesn't put all of his eggs in one basket, and he knows not to focus on one source of information to the point of ignoring other avenues.  He might not know now, but he will soon.  Like I told you before, Arvin Sloane takes betrayal very personally."

Vaughn stiffened in spite of himself.  Their earlier confrontation still rang in his ears.  "I remember," he said, hoping it sounded calm and flat.

The look on Jack's face told him that he failed.  "I'm sorry, Michael.  I did what I did to save my daughter's life."

"You went over my head, Jack.  Without even giving me time to think about it," Vaughn snapped.  He inhaled and told himself to remain calm.  Jack had been right; it had been a set up.

"Yes, I did.  And I would do it again, Michael, if the circumstances were the same."

Vaughn's stomach protested the punch.  He thought Jack trusted him, respected him.

"I do," Jack said, as if Vaughn had voiced his thoughts.  "I trust you to keep her safe even when your superiors argue with you.  I knew you would fight me, Michael, and I didn't have time to explain.  I needed you to trust me."

Staring at him, Vaughn struggled to explain why he was so bothered by Jack's behavior.  "I did trust you, Jack.  You didn't trust me."

Jack's grin surprised him.  "I trusted you to behave like you always do.  You were focused on the goal:  Protect Sydney.  I needed to break that focus and asking Davenport to overrule you did it."

"Strategy," Vaughn sighed.

"It's how I think," his friend replied.  "I had to get your focus broken long enough to get your attention."

"So you could save Sydney and her cover."

"Exactly."  Jack looked down at his watch.

"Because taking down SD-6 is what gets her up in the morning," Vaughn said.  A stray thought ran through his head and grew.

Jack's focus shifted to him.  "Yes."

Vaughn stared at his friend.  "I've been thinking about that ever since you said it.  Is it what gets her up in the mornings?  Or is it what gets _you_ up out of bed?"

Storm clouds gathered in Jack's eyes.  Vaughn ignored the flashes of lightening.  "I mean you must hate SD-6, even more than Sydney.  They murdered her fiancé, lied to her, but they did worse to you, Jack.  They stole your entire life from you."

Jack's relaxed his fists.  "Yes, Michael, they did.  And, yes, I want them destroyed.  It _is_ personal, but I'm not going to foolishly risk my daughter's life to do it."

"I'm not going to let you, Jack," Vaughn said, hating himself for causing the pain, but knowing that the warning needed to be made.

Jack stared at him for a minute, and Vaughn felt like that teenage boy that so desperately needed a father figure.  Finally, Jack nodded.  "Good.  It's the only thing I ask of you these days:  Keep Sydney safe."


	21. Chapter 21

"Why the long face, Syd?"  Dixon asked when she sat down across from him.

Sydney looked up from her desk and smiled.  "I'm off from work for the next few days, and I was hoping that I could talk to Mom and schedule another girls' day out."

She desperately needed to talk to her mother about those codes; she needed to tell her about the CIA and about Jack knowing.  She knew her father--and the agency--would be furious, but she needed to be honest with Laura.  She needed Laura to be honest with her.

"I'm sorry, Syd, but Sloane sent your mom out on assignment."

Sydney's eyebrows snapped together.  "Assignment?"

"Yeah," Dixon said, picking up a pencil.  "I think someone told me that she was going to Havana."

"Cuba," Sydney whispered as her heart began to pound.

"Yeah, I don't know what's there, but Sloane wanted her to go."

Sydney knew exactly what--or rather who--was there.

***

"It took me a second to realize what you were doing," Sydney said with a grin on her face.

"I was blinking as fast as I could," her father told her.

"I know," she said, the grin still plastered on her face.  "I was like 'hard on your light'?" she joked.

"Guard on your right," Jack replied, staying focused on the job.

"Well, I figured it out," she said.  The euphoria of victory was leaving her.  "I was just never very good at Morse code."

She gasped when she saw the blood on his arm.  "Dad, you were shot."

Jack shrugged the injury off.  "It's nothing."  He returned his focus back to their prisoner.  A short time later, Sydney sat in the backseat, aiming a gun at Hassan's head.

"So, now what?  Take me to the mountains and kill me?" Hassan said as the countryside began to overtake the city.

"We are going to fake your death so that SD-6 thinks you are dead.  After you give us your client list," Sydney answered before Jack could.  She saw her father look at her in the rearview mirror, and she dreaded telling him what she now knew.

***

Jack elbowed Hassan in the face, knocking the man unconscious.  He started typing him up as he demanded to know why the change the plans.  "Why did I just cover a man in fake blood and take his picture, Sydney?  Why are you here?"

His daughter reminded him of a lost animal.  She stared at him, and tears filled her eyes.  "SD-6 has sent someone to take care of Hassan."

"I think I could handle an SD-6 assassin on my own, Sydney.  I've been doing this job long before you were even born," he snapped.  He couldn't believe that Devlin had let her follow him.

"It's Mom," she said, and his world stopped again.

He sank down on the floor.  "Laura's an assassin?"

"I'm sorry," Sydney whispered, sitting down next to him.

Jack struggled to focus on his job.  He used to never have to work hard to focus; he always knew he could relax, be himself, when he got home.  Just as soon as he got the job done.

He stared at his daughter and thought about SD-6.  Nodding, he reminded himself that he just needed to get the job done.

***

Laura was shaking when she entered her house.  She had gone straight to her daughter's apartment, but when she hadn't found her there, she had returned to her own home to think.  Instead of peace and quiet, she had found Sydney's Land Rover parked outside.

Sydney stared at her, a deer caught in headlights.  "Hello, Mom."

"Who do you work for?"  Laura demanded.  Her voice was softer than she expected, and she realized that fear was choking her.  For the first time in her life, she was completely terrified.

She could lose her daughter.

"Who, Sydney?"  She grasped her daughter's shoulders and squeezed, resisting the impulse to shake her.  How could she be so stupid?  Didn't she know they would kill her when they found out?  And they would find out; they always did.

"And don't tell me that you're not.  I recognized your description from my contacts.  You stole Hassan out from his own home and guards.  You and another man."  She had not even bothered to find out any information about her daughter's associate.  "Who do you work for, Sydney?"

Sydney didn't answer her.  Instead, she handed her an envelope.  Laura ripped it open and pictures fell into her hand.  Pictures of a dead Hassan.  "What's this?"

"I know Sloane sent you to kill him," Sydney whispered, causing Laura's heart to shatter.  Her daughter now knew one of her dirtiest secrets; she was a killer, an assassin.  "Sloane would want proof that you had done the job, so I got you proof."

Laura sat the pictures down on the bar and looked over at the clock.  Jack wouldn't be home for hours.  "He's not dead, is he?  You faked these shots.  The people you work for didn't want Sloane looking for him anymore."

Sydney shook her head.  "No, they didn't, and I wanted you to be safe from Sloane.  He doesn't like failure."

Laura's grin was tight.  "Don't worry about me, Sydney.  I have a long history with Sloane.  He would forgive me a few mistakes."

She reached up and caressed Sydney's cheek.  She looked at her through tear-filled eyes.  "But he won't forgive your betrayal, Sydney.  You have to stop."

"I can't."

Suddenly furious, Laura snapped, "Why?  Do you honestly believe that they have your best interest at heart?  That they will protect you?"

"Yes, she does," answered a voice from behind her, a voice she hadn't expected to hear.

A part of Laura wanted to run, to hide away from him.  Not that she could hide from the truth any longer.  Still, her body resisted as she forced it to turn and face her husband.

He looked at her with hate in his eyes, and Laura tried to find the strength to swallow.  She didn't know how her weak legs were holding her, but she was glad that she wasn't a heap on the floor.  She would face this with her shoulders straight and her head high.

And her heart broke into a million tiny slivers.

"Go home, Sydney."  He didn't even bother to look in their daughter's direction.  His eyes remained trained on her.

"Dad--"

"Go," he said in a tone that didn't allow for argument.  He was being a senior officer of the CIA instead of a father.

Sydney took a few steps forward, looked at them both, and then nodded.  The door barely made a sound when she closed it behind her.

***

Jack stared at his wife and wondered if she knew he was trembling.  He wondered if she knew he was wishing that he could be an ostrich.  He had liked living with his head stuck in the damn ground; he had liked not knowing what was really happening around him.  He wanted that happiness back.  He could never get it back.

"You've been hurt," she whispered, sounding like the caring wife he had always thought she was.

His cheek started throbbing.  He had forgotten about it and his shoulder until she spoke.  "Hassan didn't much care for me asking questions."

"No," she whispered.  "He wouldn't."

"I'm not asking you any questions, Laura.  I don't want to know the whys anymore.  I'm too tired to care."  He took a step forward and she stepped back.  Her back bumped into the bar.

He put his hands around her, laying them on the bar.  He leaned forward.  "But I will give you warning: if you tell that son of a bitch, if you do anything that harms our daughter, I will personally kill you.  Do you understand me?"

She only stared at him mutely.  Finally, she nodded.  He wanted to choke her, to shake, make her talk.  Instead, he stood up straight.  "Good.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to move my things into the guest room."

He walked away, leaving his marriage behind him.  It was now over.  He didn't have to live in a lie anymore.  He wished he were happy about it.

***

"You just left them?"  Vaughn couldn't believe his ears.  "How could you just leave them?"

Sydney looked up at him, and he hated the lifelessness in her gaze.  He wanted to see the familiar crackle of anger, of frustration, in those eyes.  "What else could I do, Vaughn?  Mom and Dad have never let me take sides in their arguments.  They hardly even let me see them argue."

"They didn't really argue much," Vaughn said.  He had never believed Jack's claim.  Well, he had believed it because it was Jack, but it always struck him as strange at how much Laura agreed with Jack and Jack with Laura.  A fairy-tale marriage.

Only Jack hadn't known about the evil stepfather Sloane.

"No, they didn't.  And my father had never looked at mother that way before," Sydney whispered.  "He used to always treat her like a princess."

Vaughn shifted on his feet, thinking about his own father.  His stomach rolled, not wanting to cause her any more distress, but needing to know the answers.  "I, uh, got those codes deciphered.  I had N.S.A. look at them."

Sydney's shoulder's stiffened.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Vaughn told her.  He opened his briefcase and handed her the files he had been carrying for over a day.  Inside were the translations.

"What are they?"  Sydney asked, her voice flat.  If he didn't know her better, he would think she wasn't interested.

"Directives.  Confirmed KGB orders," he told her as he watched her.  She gasped when he said KGB, and he wondered again where she had gotten the code.

She stared up at him, and he was stunned by the terror in her eyes.  "What kind of orders? What do they mean?"

"It's a list of aliases, of handles--people," he whispered.  People who had never came home, who became a star on a wall in Langley.

"Who?"

He barely heard the question.  "Those are official code names given by the CIA to over a dozen of our officers.  All of whom died."  He was proud of how professional he sounded.  He wanted to yell about it, to scream that life wasn't fair.  No little boy should grow up without his father.

Some part of himself said that he should be happy that he least he now knew.  He knew where and how his father had been killed.  And now he had a chance to find out who had murdered William Vaughn.  He didn't feel happy.

Sydney stood up and walked away from him.  She shook her head.  "No," she sighed.

"Sydney, where did you get these codes?"

"I can't tell you."  She kept her back turned to him.

Vaughn reached for the folders.  "Then I guess you'll have to tell Devlin and Jack."

Sydney spun to look at him.  "You can't tell them!"

Vaughn's laughter was not a happy sound.  "I sure as hell can't keep it from them."

"You have to," Sydney said, putting her hand over his before he could move the folders.

"No, I don't.  I won't," he said, yanking his hand and the folders up off the table.  "Don't even ask me to do that, Sydney."

"Vaughn, you have to--"

"No!"  He stared at her.  "My father was one of those agents, Sydney.  Whoever you are trying to protect murdered him.'

Sydney sank down to the floor.  She started to cry.  "I'm so sorry."

He squatted down in front of her.  "Why?  Who--" He saw the answer in her eyes.  "No."

"Mom and Dad honeymooned in Europe," she whispered.  "They found a bookstore in Prague that was magical--that's what Mom said about it.  They set up an order with them to ship books on a monthly basis so that Mom could get non-Western literature as it was being published."

Vaughn felt sick.  He didn't want to hear this; he didn't need to hear it.  He wanted to go to Devlin, wanted to have his father's murder arrested and punished.  He couldn't do that to Jack, a man who had acted like his father for the last twenty years.

"Inside the covers are these inscriptions.  Some of them are simple like 'With all my love, Jack.'  Some of them are long, flowing letters of love."  Sydney chuckled.  "Some of them are really bad poems that he wrote."

She looked up at him.  Tears covered her face.  "And after that, hidden in the margins, are orders for my mother to kill."

She stared at him and waited for him to make up his mind.  Closing his eyes, he prayed that his father would forgive him and that his mother never found out that he had decided to protect his father's murderer.

Vaughn reached out and hugged Sydney close.  He didn't know if he was giving comfort or receiving it.


	22. Chapter 22

Sydney stopped in front of the house before she even realized it.  She looked up, confused about where she was.  Then, she sobbed and smiled at the same time.  She had driven around the city until finally stopping right in front of Will's house.

Taking in a deep shaky breath, she opened the door and stumbled out onto the pavement.  Her legs screamed in protest.  They had lost feeling earlier, and now the blood was flowing free again.

She walked towards Will's door, hoping and praying with every step that he was alone, that Jenny was not spending the night.  She knocked the door.

He opened it and smiled when he seen it was her.  Then, he noticed her face.  She slid into his arms, and he hugged her just like she knew he would.  Will remained constant.  Her Mom and Dad no longer even liked one another.  They were a part of her other world now.  Vaughn had somehow managed to become a part of her normal life.  Her mother had killed his father.  Murdered him.  

She had stolen a child's father from him.  Sydney bent over as her stomach protested.  "Come here," Will said, leading her to the couch.

He followed her down as she sank onto the soft leather.  He wrapped his arms around her, and she felt like she could breathe again.

As she lay there, he stroked her hair.  Her thoughts continued to swirl around.  She felt her muscles start to relax, drawn into the steady rhythm.  Finally, her eyes closed, and her body got the much-needed sleep it had been demanding.

Her brain, however, continued to provide her images of her beautiful Mom murdering a man in cold blood.

***

Laura stared at the mirror.  For someone who did not get any sleep the night before, she didn't look that bad.  Her arm protested, and Laura looked down and realized that she was holding her compact.  Had been holding it for some time.  She quickly swapped her brush across the blush and applied to her cheeks.  Now she looked a little more alive.

She walked out into a dead house.  That's what it felt like.  Everything that had happened yesterday had destroyed the laughter that used to ring in the hallways.  Old happy memories were now tainted by the truth she had tried so hard to hide.

Well, he still didn't know the whole truth.  As she poured herself a cup of coffee--brewed just as it had been programmed--she struggled to find an excuse he would accept.  She knew he wanted answers, that he would demand them when he had calmed himself down, when he felt like he could handle the complete truth without reacting emotionally.

Not that she would ever tell him the complete truth.  She could never tell him why she had started working for SD-6.  He could never forgive that reason.  Her stomach rolled, and she put down her cup of coffee.  It tasted like rotten fruit in her mouth.

Sighing, she turned and reached for her briefcase.  She had a meeting with Sloane today, and she had packed the pictures last night.  It had given her some hope that Sydney--and Jack--had cared enough to fake Hassan's death.

She noticed the book lying on the desk besides her briefcase.  It was the one she had loaned Sydney earlier.  She picked it up and noticed the inscription inside.  His love.  Something she used to scorn had become the most important thing in the world to her.

She traced his name with her finger.  She would think of something to return her world to the way it had been.  She would.  Her finger trailed from his name to the side of the book.

She noticed the rough edges almost immediately.  It felt like someone had spilt something on it, gotten it wet.  Then, she remembered Francie's call.  Lemonade now stained the picture.  She flipped it open and noticed the now-visible markings inside.

Swallowing the scream that fought to come out, Laura sat down the book and backed away from it.  Her daughter now knew the whole truth; Jack would soon.  There was no going back, and she had to stop lying to herself.

Taking two deep breaths to steady herself, Laura grabbed the briefcase and marched out to the car.  She had a meeting to get to, and she would focus on her life later.

***

As she drove to Credit Dauphine, she thought about SD-6 and her recruitment into that organization.  Not that she had ever wanted to be a part of it.  Sloane had not given her any choice in the matter.

She had still been in her hospital bed . . .

"Hello, Laura," said her husband's friend as he sailed into the room.  He held a large bouquet of flowers in front of him.  Laura forced herself to smile as she sat up straight in bed.  She didn't wince when he leaned down and kissed her cheek.

"Hello, Arvin," she said.  "It's so good to see you," she lied.  "Where's Emily?"

"She couldn't make it, I'm afraid.  I told her that I would stop by to see you after work," Sloane said.  He sat down on the edge of the bed instead of in the seat where Jack usually sat.  "Besides, I wanted to talk to you about a proposition."

"A proposition?"  Laura laughed.  "About what?"

"About a job," he answered with a serious look on his face.  "I'm sure you've heard about the big free-lance movement in our business."

Laura made sure she looked confused, but everyone in intelligence had heard the whispers of what was about to happen.  She knew about it, but why would he think she did?

"Oh, please, Laura.  There is no need for lies between us.  We are a lot alike, you and I," Sloane said, pulling up his pant leg as he leaned back.  "And don't worry about Jack.  He's over hounding the poor Vaughn widow.  I must admit you set that man up nicely."

"What are you talking about?"  Laura's heart pounded in her ears.  She had set up William Vaughn to take the fall if they found anything that could implicate a double or KGB agent that was close in ranks to them.  She had thought Calder was smart enough to destroy any such evidence, but she had wanted to make sure that her bases were covered.

She was changing her life.  She had told them that she would no longer be taking their orders; orders that she had followed without question until they told her it was time to leave her life behind.  And she had almost followed that one, too.  Except Sydney's friend had lost her mother to cancer, and Sydney, with tears in her eyes, had begged Laura not to leave her.  Jack had been equally upset at the news.  "It could have as easily have been me, Laura.  Trying to raise Sydney on my own."

She had known then that she could not leave them, and she had worked damn hard to get everything in order so that she could stay.  Calder had been taken care of; she had seen his car slam head-on into a tree seconds before Jack's car had found its own tree to stop against.

Her injuries were major, but she would recover.  She could handle her wounds; she deserved the pain for the lies she had done.  But now she could live lie free.

Sitting in her hospital bed, staring into Sloane's eyes, she realized that she would never be allowed the happy, normal life that she now craved, that she had worked so hard to achieve.

Sloane leaned down and pulled out a file folder from beneath the mound of flowers.  He handed it to Laura.  "What do you think my good friend Jack would say if he knew you were KGB, Laura?  Or should I say 'Irena'?"

The honking of a horn brought Laura's thoughts back to today.  She pushed the gas pedal and sped through the light.  She struggled to regain control of her thoughts as she turned towards the Credit Dauphine parking garage.  She would live through today, wear the mask, and handle everything later.  When she had time to think.

***

Sloane stared at her strangely.  Was she wearing a sign that said, "I'm now lying to you to protect my double-agent daughter and my CIA husband"?

He smiled.  "I'm glad you're back safely.  To tell the truth, I was a little nervous."

Laura smiled and chuckled.  "I've been a lot worse than Havana, Arvin."  She lost her smile and looked at him.  "We both have."

Sloane nodded as he played with the back of his chair.  He was standing behind it, a familiar gesture on his part.  He used that chair and his desk like shields, keeping the world at bay.  "Yeah," he said.  "When I didn't hear from you, I thought that maybe Hassan had gotten a lead.  Maybe that he knew you were coming."

Laura sank down in the chair.  She hated these chairs.  They looked like lounge chairs instead of the professional furniture they should be.  "That's why I took my time asking around.  I knew some of my contacts might not be so loyal to me anymore."  She shrugged.  "It all worked out."

"Not for all of us," Sloane said with a grin that made her want to wince.

She smiled back.  "No, not for him."  Had there really been a time when she had enjoyed a successful assassination?

"Thank you."  Sloane was being his most honest self.  His appreciation was sincere.

"It's my job," she said, wanting to throw up.

***

Jack stared at the wall.  He knew he should working on the increasing pile of paperwork on his desk, but he didn't seem to have the strength to even lift the pen.

Everything was over.  All secrets were out and on the table.  Looking back over his marriage, he knew that he was the first liar.  Sure, he had always told her that he was CIA, but he had never shared details with her.  Not the real ones.  He never told her when he had been close to losing his life.

Sighing, he turned to stare out the window.  The blue skies mocked him.  Still, after everything he had learned, he wanted to forgive Laura.  Wanted to excuse her behavior, her lies.  He had started the lying, so her betrayal was okay?  A pathetic old man.  That's what he was.

A soft knock on the door forced him to turn around, to face the room.  "Come in," he said, knowing that it was his secretary.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," Janet said as she strolled into the room.  "But this envelope just arrived for you, and it is marked urgent."

He took it from her hands and tried to smile.  "Thank you."

Janet nodded and started to turn away.  "Jack, I--" He looked at her, surprised by her informality.  She usually kept her distance, at her own choice.  Personally, he preferred everyone referring to him as 'Jack'.  "I just wanted to say that I've noticed that things aren't the same between you and Laura lately."

He wanted to deny it, but he needed to set the stage for his eventual departure from that house of lies.  His stomach rolled at the thought of leaving Laura.  "No, they are not," he admitted, looking down at his desk.  He picked up his pen, the one Laura had given him as a birthday gift, and it felt heavy in his hand.

"I've been there, and I know it's rough.  I-I wanted to tell you that I think you are a great guy," she whispered.

He looked up at her and saw something in her eyes that he had never noticed before.  She thought she was in love with him, and she was letting him know that she was available.  He saw the vulnerability in her eyes.  "Thank you," he said, trying to let her know that while he wasn't willing to accept the offer, he honestly did appreciate it.

She smiled sadly, and he saw that she understood.  "Will there be anything else, Sir?"

"Not right now," he answered.  He watched her walk from the room.

Looking down he opened the package.  Inside was a file.  The paperwork seemed to be about airplane parts, but Jack was familiar with the code.  It was from Vaughn, informing him that Sydney was on her way to Greece to get the specs of a weapon Hassan had been developing.  He also let him know that Hassan was not cooperating; he was demanding that his wife and children be brought to the US and protected from his enemies.

He stuck the folder back in the envelope and wondered what his wife was doing.  Unfortunately, he couldn't protect her from herself.  She was the enemy, and there was a damn thing he could do about it.

***

Vaughn sat in a bloodmobile and stared at the beautiful girl in front of him.  She had turned his life upside down and spun it around.  He no longer knew for sure where he was, and the part the bothered him the most was that he didn't seem to care.

He shouldn't even like her.  Her father had filled in for his, and a small part of himself had been jealous of the "real" kid.  She had what he wanted, and the man he was today knew why Jack had never introduced them.  He had told him it was because Sydney didn't know the truth like Michael, but Vaughn knew better now.  Jack did it to protect him.  He had known that Vaughn wanted their time together to be all about them, and introducing Sydney into the mix would change their relationship.

Her mother had murdered his father.  Hell, Laura was destroying Jack now.  He couldn't forgive her for any of it.  Sydney was the reason he hadn't reported her, yet.  Yes, Jack was a factor; the biggest factor right now.  However, Vaughn hadn't immediately gone to Devlin with the notes from NSA because of Sydney.  He had wanted her to tell him herself where they had come from, and he had known she wasn't comfortable giving him those codes.

"He _licked_ my face," Sydney said.

Vaughn wanted to wince.  "I understand."

"You don't really," Sydney said with a small shudder.  "He _licked_ my _face_."  She sighed in anger.  "You want to know the worst part?  Because of him, I didn't succeed.  Because of him, Dixon accessed the information, the CIA got nothing, and SD-6 ended up with what they wanted.  I want to go to Crete myself," she said suddenly.  He had told her earlier what Hassan had said.  "I want to find the stockpile Hassan told you about, get the package, and bring it back."

Vaughn wanted her to go.  It would be great for the CIA to get their hands on this mysterious package, this weapon that Hassan had been developing.  The CIA would be for it, but Jack would be against it.  He could imagine Jack's calm voice telling him the problems with the operation.  "I just don't feel it's the right time for the CIA to send you anywhere without SD-6's knowledge.  We just did that with Cuba.  I think it's too dangerous."

Sydney stared at him for a few seconds, and the hairs on his neck screamed to attention.  "We could use my mother."

"What?  Are you crazy?  Laura Bristow is a loyal SD-6 agent.  Before that she was loyal KGB!  You're mother is not a double agent for us, Sydney."

She sighed and shifted in her seat.  "I know, but I also know that Mom will help me."

"Sydney, she's a killer."

"She's my mother," she replied.

Vaughn heard his jaw pop from the sudden pressure he was exerting on it.  "She let you be recruited by mercenaries, Sydney.  Not a very loving action."

She looked back at him, her gaze steady and sure.  "We don't know that, Vaughn.  I mean, Dad didn't exactly invite me to be a part of the CIA."  He wanted to protest, but before he could he saw her arrive at her own decision.  "I'm going to let Mom help me get that package."


	23. Chapter 23

Sydney strolled into her office as if she didn't have a care in the world.  Laura smiled at her and motioned for her to close the door.  It was fake; she barely had the strength to smile for real anymore.  Sydney's grin disappeared as soon as the door closed behind her.

She dropped a note on Laura's desk before sitting down.  She leaned forward, her hands on her knees.  "Mom, I know you've made mistakes.  We both have.  I know, given the chance, you'd go back and take a different path."

Laura forced herself not to respond, to not show any reaction.  She wished she could go back and kill Arvin Sloane.  It was the only different path she would have taken--she wouldn't have agreed to work for SD-6.  She would have found another way to protect her home.

She wanted to tell her daughter that she would have decided to work for the KGB.  She would without a moment's doubt.  Because no KGB would have meant no Jack and no Sydney; they were worth traveling that rocky path a million times.

"And that you would right the things you did wrong.  My point is, something went wrong last week, and I have a chance to correct it.  But I need your help.  Please.  You have to make Sloane believe that you've received intel about Hassan's weapons stockpile."

Looking down at the words written on the paper, Laura didn't even notice when her daughter left the room.  She may have been forced into SD-6, but she had always been a loyal officer.  Until she found out that her daughter was to die, until she had found out that her own daughter was a double agent.

Staring at the paper, she thought about why she had joined SD-6 in the first place, and she realized that her decision had already been made.

***

Jack put down the phone with deliberate ease.  He felt like tossing it against the wall.  He had felt like it every time Vaughn had apologized for making the mistake.  Jack hadn't blamed him for the danger Sydney had faced in Crete.  Hassan was a master at the game, and he had played it brilliantly.  He had known that the lure of the weapons stockpile would be too great to ignore, and he had used his own safety devices to trap Sydney so he could get his son and wife brought to the US like he wanted.

His biggest problem with the mission was that Sydney had brought her mother in on the action.  Laura had lied to Sloane, telling him that her contacts in the Middle East had given her the information.  She had lied to get Sydney what she wanted.

And Jack didn't know how to respond, how to feel about what she had done.

The phone rang.  "Bristow," he answered.  He stiffened when he heard his wife's voice on the other end.  "Why are you calling, Laura?"

His wife sighed.  "I want to know if Sydney is okay.  I don't trust that man."

He stiffened and then he chuckled.  "He got what he wanted, and we got what we wanted," he told her and then asked himself why he was telling her anything.  He still didn't know about her loyalty, but he was starting to believe that their daughter had it.

"Damn," she sighed.  He could see her in his mind's eyes, rubbing her neck.  She was sitting on their bed.  Her shoes were kicked off, of course.  She never kept her shoes on a second longer than she had to.  

"I'm sorry for calling," she sighed.  "But Sydney isn't supposed to be back until tomorrow, and I wanted to know if she was okay."

"She's fine," he whispered.

She sighed again, and he could hear her shifting around on the bed.  "Jack, tell Devlin that's he's going to have a walk-in Friday.  I have the day off."

Jack felt his jaw go slack.  "What?"

"I'm walking in Friday.  But if they want to hear everything I know about SD-6, you have to be there, Jack.  I won't talk if you're not there."

Before he could respond, he heard the gentle click of the phone being hung up.  He lowered the receiver, lost in thought.  Now what was he supposed to feel?

***

Sydney was surprised to find Vaughn pacing.  "What's happening?"

Vaughn ran his hand through his hair as he stopped and stared at her.  "Weiss called me to let me know that your mom's walking-in this morning."

"What?"  Sydney smiled.  Then, it faded as she realized what her father didn't know.

"That was what I was thinking about, too," Vaughn admitted.  "Do you think she'll tell the complete truth?"

Sydney blinked away the tears.  "I don't know, but I'm going to be there to find out."

***

Vaughn sank down in the chair next to Sydney.  She looked remarkably composed for someone who had just snuck into CIA headquarters in the trunk of his car.  Not to mention the battle that she had fought with Devlin to be allowed into this debriefing.

Jack walked into the room and froze for a brief second when he saw them.  He nodded and walked towards the front of the room.

"It's a big meeting," Sydney said.

"I know," Vaughn said, leaning towards her.  "A twenty-year veteran of SD-6 is big doings."  He didn't mention the ten years or so that she had worked for the KGB, but he knew Sydney was thinking about it, too.  Would Laura tell them--tell Jack--the entire truth of her life today?

Laura and her escort walked in last.  Sydney and her mother stared at each other.  Then, Laura nodded and looked away.  "She's going to do it," Sydney whispered.

Vaughn didn't look down when her hand slid into his beneath the table.  He squeezed her cold hand in his, hoping that Jack had the strength to face what he had to face.

***

Laura looked at the faces in the room; many of them were well-known to her.  She noticed her daughter sitting next to a familiar-looking man, and she wondered why Jack had gotten Vaughn to be their daughter's handler.  She had watched Jack and Michael Vaughn together over the years, always from a distance.  Jack had never hid his role in the young man's life.  He had been a positive influence in Vaughn's life; she had been a negative.

Just as she had been the negative in so many lives.  Jack.  Sydney.  She had hurt them, and she was about to hurt Jack more, but she couldn't lie anymore.  She had to tell him the truth.

She had spent almost thirty years of her life building a house of lies.  Wrapping herself in those lies, she had felt safe.  Protected.  Loved.  But now, the seams had been exposed.  The house was toppling.

After she had helped Sydney, she had known what she needed to do.  What Jack and Sydney both wanted.  They wanted SD-6 taken down, but they didn't know the inner workings of it.  She doubted they even had a clue of how large it was.  She could help them, help keep her daughter safe.

She stared at her husband while Devlin took care of opening the debriefing.  He introduced everyone, but she didn't care who else was here.  Jack was here.  He would now know everything.  She would lose it all.

All of her years of training strained to make her look cool and professional.  Devlin asked her to identify herself for the record.  She took in a deep breath and prepared to blow down her house of lies.  "My name is Laura Bristow," she stated.

She stopped, surprised by her words.  She had meant to use her real name, but the name given to her at birth no longer fit her.  Laura Bristow was who she was now.  She had stopped being the other woman years ago.

She looked down at her clenched hands and forced them to relax.  "I--" She looked over at Sydney and took another deep breath.  She wanted to look at Jack, but she didn't have the courage.  "My name is Laura Bristow, but I was born Irina Derevko."

She saw every person in the room, except her daughter and Vaughn, sit up straight at the name.  A dawning realization was brewing in Devlin's eyes.  "In 1970, I was recruited by the KGB."

She finally met her husband's eyes.  He stared at her with horror.  The look in his eyes ripped at her guts.  She hid behind facts.  "Phase one of the operation:  I was to pose as an American, a student of literature."  She continued to stare into Jack's eyes, even though she felt like she was fighting against a tidal wave of emotions.  "Phase two: I was to make the acquaintance of a particular officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, to insinuate myself in his life, to become his confidant, earn his trust."

She felt wetness on her hands.  She looked down and saw a tear; she was crying.  She made herself look up, kept her shoulders straight.  She looked into Jack's eyes and watched as he realized that it had all been a lie.  The way they had met, the way they had fallen in love.  It was all a lie.

The shutters fell down over his eyes.  He sat back and didn't show a speck of emotion.  The house of lies had fallen, and there was no way to repair it now.

She continued to recite facts.  She told about searching her husband's briefcase every night for almost ten years.  She admitted to being an assassin, to framing William Vaughn.  She shared with them how she had been recruited by Sloane.

And she felt relief.  The despair she expected was there, yes, but the relief was greater.  The burden of the lies was being lifted from her shoulders.  Jack and Sydney now knew everything; she was no longer hiding behind a veil.

Even her earlier sense of defeat was leaving her.  Yes, her house of lies had toppled, but she could rebuild it.  Not an easy task.  Jack was hurt, rightfully so.  Sydney would never look at her the same way again; her feet of clay had been exposed.

But they would now know _her_.  The real her, not just the woman she wanted to be.  They would be working together towards a common goal, too.  Destroying SD-6 could help her rebuild her home.

She had made Jack fall in love with her before, and she would do it again.  And this time, there would be nothing standing between them.  And nothing could tear down their home.

***  
The end of the story for now . . .  
***  
  
More A/N: Thank you all for reading!

First, I must thank Amanda, who volunteered to look at this when it was nothing more than the first and third scene.  130 pages or so later, and she's still around.  Amanda, I can't thank you enough for all of your help--you reminded me of grammar rules that I had forgotten about years ago!--and I know this story is so much better--and finished!-- because of your help.

Next to be thanked has to be the incredible Thorne.  What would any of us do without her?  I'm not going to add to her many titles here.  What would I have done, Thorne, without you making sure that I knew how to spell all of the characters' names?  And making sure that I got the exact wording of the pier scene?  Oh, and I can't forget your willingness to start searching for an African city that starts with an "a" sound as we struggled to figure out exactly what Dixon was saying in "So It Begins".

(And I can't blame Thorne for this story either.  This time I'm going to blame the incredible Hil from CD for writing about AU's in one of her challenges g.  I don't know if she will want to claim it, but I had fun writing it.)  

Jenai, what would I do without you?  Your encouragement when I hit the downward swing was timely and much needed.  I can't thank you enough, and yes, I am going to finish "Ghosts" soon.

Celli, thank you for your great beta.  You had it thrown on you all at once, and still managed to go through it thoroughly and quickly.  I can't thank you enough.

As always, all mistakes contained within this story are mine.

I also must thank the Server-5 ladies, and most especially the ladies of the ILNPCC (International Late Night Porn Chat Club (TM)).  You are all the greatest!

Finally, but not the least important, I have to thank Secret Agent Fan (http://www.efanguide.com/~alias/episodes/) for the transcripts.  Stupid, idiotic me did not start recording the episodes until the season was more than half-over.  There is no way that I could have done this fic without those transcripts.

And thanks to all the people who work on Alias from the writers to the directors to the guy who brings in breakfast in the mornings. I couldn't have wrote this fic--or had has many hours of enjoyment as I have--without them.  
  
I had planned on giving information on the writers of episodes here, but I don't have a copy of every episode, and I could find no website that listed the writers for all, and the evidence contradicted on some. So, here are the episodes I freely admit from which I borrowed huge chunks of dialogue and plot for House of Lies Part One: Truth Be Told, So It Begins, Parity, A Broken Heart, Doppelganger, Reckoning, Color Blind, Time Will Tell, Mea Culpa, Spirit, and The Confession. Of course, the later episodes dealing with Laura were also used for plot points.  
  
The writers I was inspired by include such greats as: J.J. Abrams,Alex Kurtzman, Robert Orci, Vanessa Taylor, Daniel Arkin, Jesse Alexander, Jeff Pinkner, Debra J. Fisher, John Eisendrath, and Erica Messer.  
  
***


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